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The entire dungeon system was developed trying to balance reward and effort.

It was brought into the game to give players more ways of acquiring high Tiered items. However, the devs didn\'t want these items to flood the market. For more reasons than simple game balance. 

As such, there were rewards for individuals and the group. However, that still left one problem. Increasing your party size would have made things too easy.

There was a limit of 20 players (or NPCs, indeed) for each party. However, dungeons allowed multiple parties to band together to be conquered. After all, some, like this dungeon, required at least a hundred players. Though a thousand was more realistic. 

But, that meant there were more chest drops. More chances for the rare loot drops. 

To combat this, there was a cap on how many players should join in conquering a dungeon. This cap didn\'t prevent you from brute forcing dungeons, but it did drop the chest quality if surpassed. 

Regardless, back to the Pyknos Forest dungeon\'s details. The next level was SS-ranked in difficulty. 

[SS-ranked — Find the seed of corruption]

[Reward: 3 Tier 5 items, or 1 Tier 6 item]

[Individual Reward: A-ranked treasure chest]

[Cooldown: 7 days]

A-ranked chests could drop up to Tier 4 items (though rarely) and the stat potions were apparently more likely to be claimed. Though the data on this was still lacking since not many guilds or unaffiliated parties could complete such high-ranked dungeons. 

And, as for the dungeon\'s clear condition; since the original source was already known, there was no point in making that the clear condition. 

Instead, an item was hidden somewhere in the undead\'s stronghold. Like the former difficulty, the fort would be attacked by hordes. Unlike that one, however, there would be no end to the undead. 

The only way to clear this level was to find the seed of corruption and bring it back to the fort. Fighting your way through all the hordes as you went—and avoiding the boss. Facing it was a death guarantee. 

Without Eldrian, the others had surmised this level was impossible (or near to) for their current level. Perhaps if they gathered a thousand players, but that wasn\'t feasible. 

Most of their members were all over the kingdom busy doing important quests. They could only spare a few hundred for their dungeon attempts. 

And that was only the second level. There were two more. 

[SSS-Ranked — A devil will aim to kill you while you attempt to find the seed of corruption.]

[Reward: 2 Tier 6 items, or 1 Tier 7 item]

[Individual Reward: 3 A-ranked treasure chests]

[Cooldown: 21 days]

What made this difficulty insane was each player entering the dungeon spawned a devil at their strength level aiming for their lives.

And with the devils capable of morphing into any living or undead form to serve this purpose, players had to be constantly aware of the dagger in the dark. 

This level promoted having as few players enter as possible. Yet, you still had to stall the hordes of undead and find the seed.

It was basically impossible unless each player could kill a devil at their level and hundreds of undead. 

And the last difficulty, which they were going to attempt today.

[Epic-Ranked — With all other difficulty modifiers included, changes it so the boss of the dungeon holds the seed of corruption.]

[Clear Reward: 1 Tier 8 item]

[Individual Reward: 2 S-ranked treasure chests]

[Cooldown: 90 days]

Effectively, this meant you had to face and defeat the boss to gain the seed of corruption. 

The boss was the Death Knight, the same as it had been in the original quest. A Tier 8 devil/undead monstrosity. Even if the entire guild banded together, they would be slaughtered by the Death Knight. 

Which was where Eldrian came into play. This was also a good opportunity for him to test his growth. 

While he had plenty of fights in the Core, those were all without magic. Eldrian wanted to let loose, and where was better than a dungeon? Even if things went horribly wrong, nothing bad would come of it. 

Sure, they would fail the dungeon. But that was fine. The reward, while good—truly good—was only insurance. The guild only wanted it to assure their victory in the upcoming tournament. 

Eldrian was also going to be there during the tournament, but they would prefer to win the tournament without needing him. 

Still, if it came down to it, the money was too important to lose. So Eldrian would ensure they win in the end. 

"Alright, is everyone ready?" Elizabeth asked, looking at the players who had opened their schedules for the dungeon. 

This was a group of the guild\'s most elite. Naturally, all the Flaming Hearts were here. The original six who formed the heart of the guild, as well as Eldrian and Erik. 

Yes, even Erik had come out of his potion grind to help his friends with this. 

"""" Yeah!"""" The players shouted, filled with excitement. Many of them had run the other difficulties in prep, some had even tried to fight the boss. They were all burning to beat the highest-ranked dungeon yet. 

It would add even more to the glory of their guild and allow them to boast to their friends online. 

Thus far, the highest dungeon difficulty cleared was SS-Ranked. Clearing an Epic would literally strike their guild into every single player\'s memory and into their conversations. 

Which, considering everything, was extremely important. Having clout was something that Elizabeth felt was going to be very important in the future. Especially with everything that might soon happen on Earth.

And with that, they entered the dungeon.

—

Day had turned to night and the group had been teleported to the north entrance (furthest from the forest) from the south. Around them, soldiers were running around. One turned to them. 

"Don\'t just stand there!" He shouted, "The undead will be on us in minutes!"

Yes, that was the start of the dungeon. The first wave of about five thousand undead starting their siege. Just a few seconds later, the first flying corpses came over the walls. Spalltering with a sickening crunch, and slowly getting up. 

Already used to this tactic of the undead, the players got to action. The mages started forming barriers to prevent splash damage (literally), while the archers ran to the walls. Those with swords instead ran to the gates. Killing the struggling undead as they went. 

"Right, time I test out my new weapon," Eldrian muttered, taking out the literal legendary weapon he had gotten from Boran a few weeks ago. 

Because of certain concerns, he hadn\'t dared take it out for a casual battle. 

With Amnur, almost a god of smithing, having aided in its crafting. It was a thing of beauty. Not to mention Eldrian had offered his artificial magic crystal and all the other rare loot he had gathered over the years. 

In its default mode, the weapon looked like a mace. Casually moving forward, Eldrian gave a swing. Only to nearly fall over. 

That little swing of his had sent the undead right into a crater. All that remained of it was a splattered mess of rotting flesh and blood. "The heck?"