Zich stared at the system panel for a few seconds, and for once, his expression showed genuine surprise.

He had already accepted that the marketplace could move items, soul stones, contracts, and even temporary summon bonds, but he had assumed living people were outside that category. Apparently, the Ascension Mountain disagreed, and the system had just informed him that he was about to be transferred like a paid package.

’So it can teleport humans too.’

The thought made his eyes narrow slightly, not from anger but from caution. This single feature removed travel time, protected paid access, and connected distant settlements with little effort, which meant the market was not merely a trade board but a complete system tied directly to space itself.

Zich leaned back slightly and looked at the panel with a new level of wariness.

’If that nameless entity wanted to erase us, it could probably do it before we even understood what happened.’

The idea was both annoying and frightening, because Zich disliked being under the control of anything he could not measure. Still, the fact remained that whatever governed the Ascension Mountain had built rules, rewards, markets, dungeons, and forced movement with the same ease a person might arrange stones on a table.

He rubbed his thumb over the black token in his palm.

’Why introduce the Ascension Mountain in the first place? Entertainment, selection, harvesting, or something worse?’

The countdown reached zero before he could think further.

[Ding! Transfer beginning.]

The shelter room twisted around him, and for a brief instant, his stomach lurched as if the floor had been pulled away. His vision folded inward, the table, bed, and neatly arranged items stretching into lines of color before everything snapped back into place somewhere else.

Zich appeared in a wasteland with one hand against his stomach.

He did not vomit, but it was close enough to be insulting.

He forced himself to stand straight.

The air was dry, and the ground beneath his boots was cracked and gray, with patches of dead grass scattered in uneven clumps. In the distance, a wide cave entrance stood beneath a broken cliff, and a dungeon portal shimmered within it, surrounded by warning markers and a rough barrier line made from wooden posts and yellow keep-off tape.

Several stern guards stood near the entrance.

Their eyes turned toward him the moment he appeared, and one of them stepped forward with a hand resting on his weapon.

"Token." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Zich raised the black token without argument.

The guard checked it, and after the panel confirmed access, his expression eased only slightly. "You paid for six hours. You may kill the roaming monsters, but the boss is prohibited. Any attempt to damage the boss will result in penalties from the settlement contract."

Zich nodded while storing the token.

"I understand."

The guard looked him over once more, clearly doubting whether a lone player should enter a hard-ranked dungeon alone, but he did not stop him. Money had already changed hands, and in places like this, concern rarely survived the presence of a valid payment.

"Enter."

Zich stepped past the tape and moved toward the portal.

The air rippled as he crossed through.

His vision spun again, though not as violently as before, and when the sensation settled, he found himself standing inside a vast cavern that stretched far beyond what the entrance outside had suggested. The ground was made of uneven black stone, with shallow cracks running through it and pools of stale water gathered in several low places, while broken bones and old claw marks showed that many things had died here before him.

Above, the cavern ceiling hung high and uneven, filled with pale mineral veins that gave off enough weak light to see by. Large stone pillars connected the ground to the ceiling in several places, and some were cracked badly enough that a careless strike might bring pieces down, which was worth remembering.

Zich looked around carefully, noting several things to himself.

’Wide space, unstable terrain, and several blind corners. Fight heavily here and the entire thing might collapse on you.’

Right then, he caught something from the corner of his eye. In the distance, he noticed other figures inside the dungeon.

Three women stood near a split path, but their builds were so thick and rough that calling them delicate would have been a crime against observation. One wore stone-gray armor and had broad shoulders and scarred knuckles, another wore dark green armor and had a flat nose and arms thicker than most men’s thighs, while the last had pale yellow skin covered in rough scale patches along her neck and forearms.

Zich stared at them for a second.

Even if they stripped naked in front of him, he doubted his body would offer any meaningful reaction, which was a dry and unfortunate thought to have in a dungeon.

Their equipment looked worn but well-used, and their eyes carried the tired violence of people who had survived too long in one place. They noticed him at almost the same time, and although none of them moved immediately, the way their hands shifted toward their weapons told him enough.

Zich knew what they were as he had read about them on the forum.

Failures.

That was the common name given to players who had remained stuck in Layer One for years, unable to ascend no matter how many chances they were given. Some lacked talent, some lacked courage, and some had simply become too comfortable preying on weaker newcomers instead of risking their lives to ascend.

There was one thing widely known about them.

They were dangerous.

Failures were ruthless, merciless, and often shameless, because people who had already lost their future tended to become very creative when robbing those who still had one. Being in the same dungeon with people like that was not impossible, but it was unpleasant enough to make Zich slowly exhale through his nose.

"Dang," he muttered while looking at the three women, "my bad luck strikes again."

---

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