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’Ah, inventories are really convenient...’

Ren had probably said this hundreds of times since he got the system inventory reward from the world system.

The fact that he could toss something in there and not worry about it weighing him down was seriously nice. Furthermore, taking things out of his inventory was pretty nice too. He just had to think about it, and the exact item he needed and how many he needed would just materialize before his hands.

Hell, it doesn’t even have to necessarily be his hands. If he wants to take out something from his inventory, it could also materialize before him, behind him, by his side, etc. It’s really convenient.

Today was a rare occasion, though. Ren decided to go out of the clan to explore, which he doesn’t really do often.

Ren tries to do it at least once a month, but he couldn’t last month since it completely flew by him.

To be fair, Ren doesn’t have too many reasons to do so. He’s got no friends outside of the clan; he doesn’t know anybody else either. He had lived in Central City all his life, and he knew it somewhat intimately, so he saw no reason to explore too much.

Most of the time, he preferred staying inside the clan compound, training till he dropped. He figured that was a much better use of his time.

But Ren also knew that he had to go out once in a while. He was already an introverted couch potato in his previous life; he couldn’t be the same here.

Although he doesn’t intend to make friends with just random people. This was Ren’s way of reminding himself that there was a world outside of the clan’s compound.

Besides, it won’t be long before he’ll need to get used to leaving the clan for extended periods of time.

The Central City is basically the capital of the Letter Kingdom. It’s the city that’s the most prosperous, looks more modern, and has more activity compared to other cities of the kingdom. As such, Central City’s area was larger than most. It’s about the size of two cities in one.

Contrary to popular belief, the royal family doesn’t live here. Sure, they could be seen here often, and they do own some properties here as well, but this isn’t their home. That the R-City, also known as the Royal City, is a quite fitting name, actually.

The Royal City is where the majority of nobles and the Royal Family were located. It’s for the rich, the fancy, and the ones who got lucky at the genetic lottery.

Central City is a hub, the heart of the Letter Kingdom. It’s where most of the activities spanning across the entire kingdom take place first.

The Lifestyle Guild was here; there’s a huge GMU branch office here too. The royal family had a mansion here somewhere, and so do some nobles of the royal city. There are tons of skyscrapers here, and tons of martial artists coming all the way from the far edges of the Letter Kingdom’s borders visiting here pretty much every day.

Ren had seen most of what this city could offer. Even though he hadn’t explored the city again after he remembered his previous life, he attended the field trips done by the prep school each year, which took them around the city for free. That’s how Ren had gotten familiar with this place.

Even if you drop him at a random house anywhere in this city, Ren would be able to find a way back to the clan.

But, perhaps, the most eye-catching vista in this city would be none other than The Dungeon Gate.

The Dungeon Gate is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a tall gate near the dungeon entrance.

This is the city’s most heavily guarded and most dangerous place. There are always officers and martial artists patrolling this place because there will always be a risk that some monster will just break out of the gates.

Behind this gate is a land that seemed like a dried-up graveyard. The air there feels heavy, grim, foreboding, and suffocating; that’s because many people have died in that land and more will die there too in the future.

Past the depressing and grim state of the land was a mass of swirling void. That’s the dungeon entrance. That’s where individuals or teams go in to begin exploring dungeons. Despite the grim and depressing sight of the surroundings, this place is easily one of the busiest places in this city.

Unaffiliated or affiliated martial artists flock here to test their luck. They’d either choose to join an already existing party or they’d go in by themselves, feeling more than confident in their own ways rather than adjusting to a team.

Past the entrance to the dungeons was a white space where people chose what dungeon stages they’d enter. The stages start from 1 and go up to 100.

Once they’ve chosen, they will be taken to the venue using a transportation method that reportedly felt awful. By the time they arrived, the fight was on.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see people stationed inside the dungeons; some people chose to remain behind to occupy resource nodes like ore mines that could only be collected within that area.

Finding these people wasn’t really necessary. They won’t interfere with a group’s or individual’s desire to defeat the dungeon stage.

The higher the dungeon stage, the lower their descent to the dungeons.

Yes, the dungeons are beneath this land.

Back in the day, there was only a single entrance to the dungeons, and it’s this very same one in Central City.

Humans didn’t think of making more entrances because that would pose dangers to other places, and they want to contain the damage here.

But as the civilization advanced and humanity gained more understanding of the world around them and the population of martial artists increased, they had to adapt.

Now, there’s a network installed in every city that allows everybody to arrive to this same space so that they can start exploring dungeons.

The discovery that the higher dungeon stages brought them deeper into the world shocked the humans of the old era, but little did they know that that’s literally one of the very few underwhelming pieces of knowledge they’d learn the more they uncovered the truth of this world.

Ren isn’t allowed to go in there yet because he’s not at the Bone Forging Stage and he doesn’t have his dungeon explorer’s license, which are the two most important credentials to be allowed passage to the gates.

However, even if Ren couldn’t go in just yet, he could see what the dungeon gates looked like from a distance.

The gates were built in between two obelisks that are seemingly made out of pure obsidian. Their metal gates are made from rare alloys to keep the swirling mass of void behind them contained.

And because of the recent dungeon overflow, there were more guards and martial artists patrolling the vicinity. They glared at anybody who looked suspicious, and their presence was certainly intimidating.

Staring at the gates themselves, that swirling mass of void that leads to the white space where explorers could pick which dungeon to raid, gave Ren an impression that it’ll suddenly spit out waves of monsters.

It warped, stretched, and formed strange shapes that looked like it was creating monsters. It looked very unstable too. But since none of the guards or the martial artists around were panicking at the sight and activity of the portal, Ren assumed that this was normal.

’One day, I’ll go in there and explore a dungeon for real,’ he declared to himself.

Ren would admit that the portal was giving him the creeps, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid going in there forever. Even if he doesn’t want to, the world itself will force him to since that’s just how it is here in this world.

All the training that he’s doing, the hours upon hours he poured into his routine, training until he almost felt like his limbs were about to fall off, and all the knowledge he’s cramming into his brain—it’s all for the sake of surviving what’s behind this thing.

Ren knows what it’s hiding, and no, he’s not just referring to the dungeons. As someone who read the story of this world and knew its ending, Ren knew more than anybody else, probably even more than the Martial Gods themselves. Ren knew the grim and ugly truths about this world that are kept from the public’s eyes and ears.

And although he’s got no intention to spoil anything to others, since he knew the truth, he was compelled to prepare for the worst at any given moment, and it’s because the human race’s situation was precarious.

Their performance lately had been disappointing, at least to the eyes of the spire manager.

Ren knew that time was running out. And since he knew something, Ren felt compelled to do something about it.

And he wouldn’t be surprised if the world turns out to be expecting the same thing from him.

’But that’s a matter for the future. For now, I should focus on reaching the Bone Forging Stage first.’