The Era of Dungeons for All

"Monsters cannot be killed."

"Only dungeons can deal with monsters."

"The awakening ceremony begins."

Blue Star, Rongcheng, First High School's athletic field.

A sea of heads filled the field.

More than three thousand senior-year students stood in lines by class, all craning their necks to stare at the awakening device on the stage. It stood a full three stories tall.

As soon as the principal finished speaking, a tide of chatter swept through the crowd below.

"Please, please give me a combat-type dungeon theme!"

"Combat types aren't that easy to get. We'd be lucky if one in ten people awakened one.

"I don't ask for much. A support-type theme would be enough. After all, you need support dungeon themes to form a secret realm too. Once I make it to that point and form a secret realm with other people, I'll take off."

"Don't just think about what type of dungeon theme you'll get. What the hell is it good for if its tier is weak? Making a dungeon is basically burning money. Scene cards, creature cards, trap cards, material packs, source energy... which one doesn't cost money? My parents saved for six years and barely scraped together enough to buy one basic material pack."

The words brought a moment of silence to the people around him.

Then someone quickly chimed in. "True."

"Isn't every family like that? Awakening a high-tier theme is fine; at least you get subsidies. But if you awaken a low-tier one... heh, you're destined to work for someone else."

"Stop, stop. You're making my heart race..."

Amid the crowd, Su Mu couldn't help feeling a little uneasy as he listened to the discussion around him.

It had been eighteen years since a car accident sent him into this world, where he had been reborn from the womb.

He naturally knew how cruel this world was.

Several hundred years ago, the source calamity had descended.

Countless monster lairs appeared across the world, encroaching on reality like malignant tumors.

The monsters each had their own "rules of immortality"... flames couldn't burn them to death, bullets couldn't pierce them, and even nuclear bombs were no use against them.

Humanity had once fallen into despair.

Then, some humans awakened a special ability... dungeon themes.

They could open independent dungeon spaces within their souls, drag real-world monster lairs into them, and use rules to kill the monsters.

The first people to awaken had very limited themes. Most were "technological civilization."

But even that was enough for humanity to barely gain a foothold amid the monsters surrounding them.

By bringing firearms into a dungeon and applying the rule bonus of the technological civilization theme, they could deal real damage to monsters.

With flesh and blood and the legacy of the Industrial Revolution, that generation tore open a path for humanity in its desperate plight.

Over the following centuries, more and more people awakened, and the variety of dungeon themes grew.

Magic, martial arts, ghosts and monsters, fantasy, the mystical side...

All kinds of powerful themes emerged, far surpassing the original framework of technological civilization.

Humanity finally went from struggling to hold on to standing on equal footing with the monsters.

By the present day, everyone's soul power matured at eighteen, allowing them to open their soul and awaken a dungeon theme of their own.

The nation had established dungeon creation academies, the civilian sector had creators' guilds, and the military had dungeon divisions.

Human civilization had completely crossed over from the "age of firearms" into the "era of dungeons for all."

But precisely because everyone had a dungeon theme, the difference between the strong and the weak had become especially glaring.

The gap between high-grade and low-grade themes was wider than the distance between heaven and earth.

And each year's awakening ceremony was the moment when everyone was laid bare on the scales.

Some stepped into the clouds; others fell into the mud.

Calling it a moment that "changed one's fate" was no exaggeration.

Su Mu was lost in thought.

Suddenly.

A great commotion erupted ahead.

"Wh... what's going on? Is it snowing?"

"This is... a phenomenon! An awakening phenomenon! My god, what level of phenomenon is this?!"

"Fuck, it's kind of cold!"

The temperature plummeted.

Su Mu's expression froze.

People in the crowd around him had already begun rubbing their arms, their breath turning to white mist.

The sunlight in the sky was still bright, yet snowflakes drifted down from the void, fluttering through the air above the field in April.

The sight, which defied the laws of physics, plunged everyone into a brief, dead silence.

Su Mu looked toward the awakening platform.

At that moment, light blazed on the platform, and an ice-blue card took shape within the pillar of light.

On the card, the phantom of a woman in a long ice-crystal gown slowly appeared. She wore a crown, and wind and snow swirled around her. The chill radiating from the phantom alone made people feel cold to their very marrow.

Words appeared on the stone slab:

Core card: SSS-grade

Name: Snow Queen

Attributes: extreme cold / royal authority / domain

Category: creature / domain dual-attribute core card

Immediately afterward, the awakening stele lit up with an even more dazzling glow:

Dungeon theme: Ice and Snow World

Grade: SSS

Category: fantasy

Elements: ice and snow, dominion, extreme cold domain

"SSS-grade..." someone murmured, their voice trembling.

"SSS... the core card and the theme... they're both SSS? Am I seeing that right?"

"Holy shit... that's a fully maxed-out build! An SSS core card and an SSS theme, and it's a fantasy theme from a top-tier category! Does a setup like that actually exist?!"

"Ice and Snow World! That's an extreme cold domain-type dungeon under the broader fantasy theme! I saw it on a guide site last time. This type is especially effective against beast tide-type lairs, and it has incredible growth potential. It's ridiculously strong in the early, middle, and late stages..."

"Ye Qingxue has taken off just like that."

The chatter on the field was like a pot of boiling oil. Everywhere, people were sucking in sharp breaths, their faces twisting with envy, while some had already begun plotting how to latch onto her coattails.

Su Mu was slightly surprised as well.

SSS-grade.

It really was a max-level setup.

The core card was the crystal core of the entire dungeon. It had the highest attribute bonuses inside the dungeon, and all other cards had to be built around it.

Once the core card was destroyed, the entire dungeon was basically ruined.

More importantly, the core card and dungeon theme were linked.

An SSS core paired with an SSS theme was a textbook-perfect match.

The Snow Queen's attributes and Ice and Snow World complemented each other, at least doubling their power again.

And "Ice and Snow World" belonged to the broader fantasy theme, giving it an extremely high upper limit. Not only was it strong in the early stages, but once it grew, there was no ceiling at all.

With a setup like that, her future prospects were limitless. If nothing unexpected happened, the military, the three major corporations, and the top guilds would soon contact the school.

It really was impressive.

Su Mu watched for a while, then looked away.

Ye Qingxue walked down from the awakening platform, and the students around her automatically made way.

A few quick-witted ones had already begun congratulating her, and some were so excited they could barely speak coherently.

Ye Qingxue ignored their flattery. Her gaze passed through the crowd and landed squarely on Su Mu.

There was undisguised pride in her eyes, and the corners of her lips rose slightly, as if to say... Look, you're not as good as me.

Su Mu gave a helpless twitch of his lips.

Of course he knew why she was looking at him like that.

Throughout their three years of high school, Ye Qingxue could easily crush the rest of their year in any subject.

Only in soul power and dungeon theoretical framework had she consistently been a step behind him.

The closest she had come, she scored 96, only for Su Mu to score 99. Ever since then, the way Ye Qingxue looked at him had rarely been friendly.

A favored daughter of heaven who had never lost anywhere else had been beaten by the same boy in the two most important subjects for three years running.

That grudge ran deep.

"Old Su." A familiar voice came from behind him, and a hand landed on his shoulder.

Li Ming came up beside him, waggling his eyebrows as he watched Ye Qingxue walk away. "Say, was she looking at you the whole time just now?"

Su Mu pushed his hand away, speechless. "Couldn't you tell she was provoking me? She'd love nothing more than to see me awaken a trash theme in a moment so she could grind me into the ground."

"It can't be that bad, can it?" Li Ming scratched his head. "I thought there was quite a lot in the way she looked at you."

"There certainly was." Su Mu's face was expressionless. "It was called 'Three years of humiliation will be avenged today.'"

Li Ming nodded as if he half understood, then shook his head. "Forget it. I don't understand women. But Brother Mu, you've got this. You'll definitely be fine. Your soul power is 210, the highest in the whole school. I've barely seen anyone with a higher score in the textbooks. I bet you'll get at least S-grade."

Su Mu smiled but didn't reply.

It was true that the higher one's soul power, the greater the probability of awakening a high-grade theme.

But that was only a statistical pattern, not a scientific law.

No matter how pretty the numbers looked, it was still a matter of probability.

And when it came to an individual, probability had never meant "certain."

"Next, Su Mu."

The teacher's voice rang out.

The discussion on the field shifted subtly once again.

If Ye Qingxue's soul power of 122 meant "very likely," then Su Mu's score of 210 meant "it couldn't possibly be too bad."

"Here he comes, Su Mu!"

"A man with 210 soul power! If he pulls an SSS and our school produces two SSS grades today, the principal might start dancing on the spot."

"I reckon he'll start at S-grade at least. Even S-grade is a conservative guess. Maybe SS."

"What do you mean, S-grade at least? Haven't you seen cases where someone with high soul power awakened a D-grade core card? There's only a correlation between soul power and awakening grade, not causation."

"That's a low-probability event. I'll make a big bet on Su Mu. First in soul power and first in dungeon design for the whole year—if someone like him awakens something bad, heaven's laws won't stand for it."

"What good is being good at dungeon design? If your awakening isn't good, it isn't good. Just watch."

Su Mu turned a deaf ear to the discussion around him.

He stepped onto the awakening platform.

Only once he stood on it did he realize that, from this angle, the crowd below was a dense sea of heads.

The elder in charge of class changes smiled slightly. "Su Mu, just perform as you normally would. There's no need to feel pressured."

Su Mu nodded.

"Let's begin." The teacher presiding over the ceremony at the side also gave him a particularly attentive look. "First, awaken your core card. Put your hand on the light card and relax your mind."

Su Mu took a deep breath and walked up to the transparent light card.

He could clearly sense the soul fluctuations radiating from it, spreading out like ripples, waiting for him to touch them.

He raised his hand and pressed it down.

Hum... the light card trembled.

Then the light gathered.

Under everyone's gaze, a card appeared on the light card.

It had a white border, the lowest-tier border, without even a hint of luster.

There was no person, no creature, no weapon, no eye-catching design of any kind on its face.

There was only...

A stone.

A dull gray, utterly unremarkable stone, the kind you could pick up by the handful at the roadside...

An ordinary stone.