He froze.
Not just because of what he saw.
But also what he saw exerted so much pressure on his mind that it took actual physical effort to push his body forward.
Not because there was a forcefield pushing back against him, no. But because his subconscious instinct to run away from the grave sense of danger was extremely high. He knew that he had to get away from there as soon as possible.
Yet what he saw was shocking.
He was unable to turn away.
What pushed him away from it with fear also pulled him towards it with shock.
It was as though these two emotions pulling and pushing at his mind were crushing his mind. It was painful on a psychological level.
(‘What… is that?’) Rui wondered with horror as he stared at the center of the mining floor.
It was a giant messy blob of wood and bark.𝒪𝒱xt.𝐂𝑶
Its upper half was connected to a multitude of roots coming from up above.
Its lower half consisted of more roots than consisted of the one that Rui saw earlier, reaching for the esoteric raw ores across the entire mine.
In between its upper half and lower half was a separation that opened up as the tentacles tossed large unrefined ore deposits into the opening that shut close after the ore deposit fell in. Rui sensed a liquid sloshing around inside the mouth once it closed, slowly dissolving the unrefined ore boulder.
(‘Is that… a mouth?!’) Rui’s eyes widened as he realized what was going on. (‘The roots don’t directly absorb the esoteric unrefined ore deposits themselves. They feed it to that… root mouth that absorbs the unrefined ore deposits, refines it, then sends it across the rest of the dungeon through the roots that connect it to the entire dungeon everywhere.’)
Rui was completely and utterly bewildered by this discovery. (‘The vegetation mutated not just in size but also mutated to be able to absorb unrefined ore deposits faster and more efficiently.’)
The root mouth was the size of a small mountain, surrounded by a mountain range of a mine. It made him sick just to look at it. It was grotesque and sickening. Yet he couldn’t help but watch in awe as it lifted esoteric ore deposits the size of a small city block with each root. That alone told Rui how much power it had given how many roots it had.
“No Martial Squire… No Martial Squires can beat that thing head-on… That’s beyond the Squire Realm in combat power.” Rui shook his head.
He couldn’t picture even the many Martial Squires that Chairman Deacon had gathered taking down the Root of the dungeon.
In fact, he found it hard to hard to picture himself not getting annihilated by it. The most rational choice was to simply ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist.
(‘But would I really be clearing the dungeon if I ignore all this treasure? This is basically a floor, and will be treated as such by everyone,’) Rui wiped swathes of sweat off his forehead.
The pressure was more tiring than a whole day of slogging in the dungeon. He hadn’t even experienced it for more than ten seconds in real time.
For now, he just needed to get away.
He did not want to stay around any longer.
He had come across some profound discoveries that changed his view of the Shionel Dungeon.
Was the dungeon actually sentient?
Given that its Root was literally a mouth that swallowed and digested food? Or was this perhaps like a carnivorous plant that could consume despite not possessing a consciousness?
He didn’t entirely know.
Perhaps every dungeon was like this at its Root? Perhaps it was necessary for dungeons to develop such a mutation to accelerate their access to nutrition.
Regardless, it made him feel quite icky being inside the Shionel Dungeon. This was a new feeling for him. He normally felt quite comfortable in the Shionel Dungeon because he knew that every other creature wasn’t. Thus it was quite relaxing, to the point that he could even take a nap in the dungeon.
Now, however, he felt quite strange being in the dungeon with the new insights that he had made from the new discoveries that he had seen.
He quickly made his way back up, spending several hours back on the journey as he navigated through the dungeon, before finally reaching Kane.
“Hey,” Kane greeted him nonchalantly.
There was a huge pile of esoteric ore deposits that Kane had gathered. He hadn’t put it in the ring yet because he didn’t know when Rui would return and in all likelihood he would run out of cells if he kept it in the ring the entire time.
“How did it go?” Kane raised an eyebrow. “Given the long face, I’m guessing you didn’t find a single floor eh?”
He chuckled, patting Rui on the shoulder. “A for effort but life ain’t that easy, my friend. Let’s get going.”
Rui cracked a smile for the first time in what felt like a while. “Is that so?”
He made sure to commit Kane’s expression to memory when he explained everything that he found.
Who knew? If he ever mastered sketching in this world, he could make this world’s first meme, a popular form of humor amongst gen z that he never quite understood back on Earth.
“Twelve floors?!” Kane recoiled in shock. “And an ore-eating mouth for a root?!”
“Yep?”
“You’re not messing with me, are you?”
“Nope.”
Kane peered at him suspiciously, narrowing his eyes to a slit.
“I’m serious,” Rui shook his head. “Frankly, I have a hard time believing it myself. But, it is definitely real. I’ve memorized the locations of the twelve floors, so we can go get them the next time we come here.”
“Hmmm… And what about this alleged Root floor?” Kane asked with a dubious expression.
“Honestly,” Rui sighed. “I know I came here for a challenge, but damn. I need to think about it.”