In the small hidden core room, Xu Hun watched the swirling screens he’d conjured up. The dungeon core observed the party with a mix of curiosity and quiet satisfaction.

  “That’s not how dungeons work,” Jemma muttered as she hovered over Xu Hun. “The Boss was too tough.”

  The dungeon fairy’s tiny wings flickering with colour, and her voice wavered between excitement and worry. Xu Han wasn’t sure which was winning but he listened and consider her comments. On one of the screens, a large, ornately carved treasure chest had risen from the ground. Oddly, nobody ran for it. The party had just defeated the Plant Boss and was still patching each other up in the final clearing of the third-floor maze.

  Shuffling his deck with slow, practiced hands, the Guardian of Cards had watched the whole fight with a sharp, calculating expression. Now he turned to Xu Hun. “The fairy got a point, dungeon core. You overdid it,” he said, flicking the corner of a card. “A third-floor Boss shouldn’t give this much trouble to a party of adventurers over level 30.”

  Xu Hun pulsed faintly in disagreement, but he controlled his temper and kept his attention on the screens. Down in the maze, the party had finally gathered around the chest.

  “You two worry too much.” Xu Han finally said. “Sure, the Boss was tough, but not impossible. The adventurers won, didn’t they? And now, they are going to be rewarded for it.”

  On the screen, the party had finally finished tending to their wounds and sent the halfling thief, Ferdinand, to creep up to the chest. The rest of the party had hung back, hiding behind a magical shield cast by their [Sage]. Ferdinand flipped the lid, then blinked away so fast he almost vanished. The chest hissed, belching out a cloud of dust, but everyone was well out of range.

  The trap fizzled. Xu Hun watched, a bit uneasy. He realized he may had made too many trapped chests and was in danger of becoming predictable. The party crowded around the chest, cheering as the [Thief] pulled out a folding fan, with flames of foxfire snapping around it. Jemma’s wings shot up.

  “A fan? I still don’t get it. Why a magical fan? Why not a sword, or a shield, or boots, or rings? Seriously—a fan!”

  Xu Han laughed. He had thrown Jemma for a loop when he mentioned he wanted to create a magical fan. Honestly, the dungeon core had expected more options for magical items in this world. He had seen adventurers with rings and bracelets, but it seem that there was no culture of creating magical items outside these accessories. From what Jemma told him, no one even bothered enchanting the crowns of the [Kings] or [Queens] of this world. Part of him wanted to make one just to see the look on people’s faces, but he wasn’t sure if introducing magical crowns was such a good idea.

  Probably best not to try.

  “It’s a treasure. If they don’t like it, they can always toss it back in the dungeon.” Xu Han’s amused tone show that he doubted anyone would actually do that.

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  “We all know that’s not going to happen, but the treasure is not the point here. I do agree with Jemma on the Boss,” the Guardian cut in. “It is tough—way tougher than you’d expect for the third floor. Most dungeon cores would keep things easier at this stage. I’d suggest making some changes.”

  Xu Han’s first thought was to refuse, but he’d been a dungeon core long enough to know his minions’ advice was usually worth listening to. He stared at the screen for a moment. “Alright. What do you have in mind?”

  “Lower the difficulty,” the Guardian said. “Make a new Boss, something easier to beat.”

  “No.” Xu Han didn’t even hesitate. “These adventurers already fought the Boss and won! I’m not going to change it out after the fact. That’s not fair.”

  Jemma fluttered closer, wings catching the light. “What about adding restrictions to the Boss, or giving the adventurers a boost?” Her excitement was obvious, and Xu Han caught on fast.

  “You’re talking about adding tricks and restrictions to the fight?”

  “That’s right! We’ve talked about it before, but you never tried making them. This is the perfect opportunity.”

  Xu Han mulled it over. He didn’t really have any objection with the idea, but— “The final Boss room is just an open clearing. If we add too many changes, the adventurers will notice.”

  Jemma just grinned. “So what? Dungeon cores change their dungeons all the time.”

  “We’re changing a Boss fight. You’ve said it more than once—dungeon cores should only make small tweaks to their dungeons,” Xu Han reminded his fairy.

  “Which is what this is. We’re not messing with the layout or the dungeon’s theme. We’re not doing anything drastic, just adding a little something for fun. That counts as a minor change.” Jemma paused, her eyes narrowing. “Actually, we could even hide these tweaks we’re making.”

  Xu Han almost laughed. “By ‘we,’ you mean me. But go on, what’s your plan?”

  “The third floor’s a maze, right? So, what if we—well, you—put some pillars or structures inside it? If adventurers managed to find and activate the pillaars, the Boss fight gets easier.” She paused, then smirked. “We can pretend the pillars were always there. It’s just that no one had ever found them before, that’s all.”

  The Guardian nodded. “I like it. We make it that true test of the third floor isn’t strength alone, it’s about preparation and adaptability. These adventurers won, sure, but they made it harder than it needed to be because they did not weaken the Boss first.”

  Jemma laughed. “That’s right. It’s not like we made the Boss impossible. We’re a Trick Dungeon, and they never figured out the trick to fight it. Not really our fault.”

  As the adventurers vanished through the portal to the fourth floor, Xu Han fell silent, lost in thought. He tried to keep an open mind, but he still didn’t get why Jemma and the Guardian thought the third floor was too tough.

  It was because of his old life as a cultivator.

  To Xu Han, dungeons were like the secret realms of the Crimson Lands. And in the Crimson Lands, not all secret realms were the same. Some realms were so deadly they were considered death traps, while some were so simple they were treated as training grounds for new disciples. The treasures from the realms matched the danger—from just a handful of spiritual herbs from a simple realm to some heaven-defying technique from a death trap. The harder the realm, the better the reward. The better the treasure, the more risk a cultivator would need to face.

  To Xu Hun, that was fair. If a cultivator didn’t want risk, then he shouldn’t be in the secret realm in the first place. However, he understood things were a little different in this world.

  Xu Han sighed. “Alright. Just for the sake of argument, what exactly do you want me to do?”