Chapter 34: Dual cultivation
Before committing to this particular expedition, Mitch had conducted extensive research into dungeon mechanics, knowledge that could mean the difference between profit and loss, or even life and death.
Through conversations with veteran awakeners and careful study of guild records, he’d discovered a crucial pattern: the higher the tier of a dungeon, the greater the likelihood that defeated creatures would leave behind tangible remains rather than simply dissolving into motes of mana light, as had happened in his first dungeon, a weak tier 1 dungeon where every kill had yielded nothing but cores.
The correlation was clear and compelling: stronger creatures possessed a greater chance of maintaining their physical form after death.
This meant that the nature elemental serving as this dungeon’s boss, the most powerful entity within these chambers, represented his best opportunity to harvest rare materials using his gather skill.
Such materials were invaluable and could fetch considerable prices in the right markets.
Their first day’s hunt had proven moderately successful. From the goblin raiders they’d dispatched throughout the mini forest, they’d collected forty-six low-tier 2 cores, each one pulsing with contained mana that would fuel their advancement.
More importantly, two goblin corpses had defied the dungeon’s typical dissolution process, allowing Mitch to harvest their remains.
[4 x Tier 2 golbin ear – crafting ingredient, has some mana conductivity]
[8 x Tier 2 golbin fangs – crafting ingredient, has some mana conductivity]
Frustratingly, their weapons and crude clothing had still vanished into nothingness, following the dungeon’s mysterious rules that seemed to preserve only organic matter under specific circumstances.
They had established their base camp at the dungeon’s entrance, taking advantage of a unique property of these mana-saturated structures: wild monsters instinctively avoided the area due to the intense magical fluctuations emanating from within.
This natural barrier provided them with security that no amount of guards or fortifications could match.