Chapter 43. A World where Money Earns Money (2)

Anteater dungeon, it was a special dungeon that was classified as the ‘mobile’ secret dungeon. It was a dungeon that generated at random spots at random times so Sanghyuk didn’t know the exact place either. However, he knew the conditions for it to appear.

‘Desert wolf meat. This was the key to the anteater dungeon.’

Sanghyuk had filled his bag with meat from the desert wolf. He didn’t know where it exactly appeared but it was very likely for a hellfire anteater to appear if he scattered around that meat.

The anteater dungeon was a dungeon that appeared inside the huge monster known as the hellfire anteater.

The hellfire anteater was a rare named monster itself and the only way to defeat this named monster was to all-clear the anteater dungeon that generated inside its body.

The reason Sanghyuk was aiming for this anteater dungeon was that this dungeon didn’t just end with one such dungeon, but up to 10 of them in the span of three months.

And hellfire anteaters dropped ‘high grade enhancement stones’ at 99% chance so there were no better named monsters to farm these from.

Sanghyuk scattered desert wolf meat in the areas where anteater dungeons spawned frequently and waited patiently.

Since there were no specific hunting fields around here, there were no users around either.

And around 30 minutes later.

Something finally took a bait.

*Rumble.*

One of the sand dunes suddenly rapidly collapsed and a large hole was created. The wolf meat that Sanghyuk had placed there naturally disappeared into that hole as well.

‘It’s open!’

Sanghyuk ran towards that hole as soon as the hole opened without hesitation.

The way to enter the anteater dungeon was simple. Just…… throw your body inside the hole.

There was a large hellfire anteater with its mouth wide open at the center so it may look like an extremely dangerous and even suicidal thing to do from the outside.

This was why many people didn’t know the existence of the anteater dungeons for a long time. They always tried to kill the hellfire anteater from the outside. However, this thing absorbed every single attack directed at it, so it was once even called the invincible monster.

Of course, a user accidentally fell into the hole later and the existence of the secret dungeon was finally known.

Naturally, Sanghyuk knew about this dungeon so he could throw his body in without hesitation and enter the secret dungeon immediately.

You have entered the body of the hellfire anteater. Inside its body is a dungeon made of twisted space.

The secret dungeon ‘anteater dungeon’ has been discovered.

The anteater dungeon will be bound to the Dimensional Traveler ‘Immortal’.

You can register up to two users in this dungeon.

Perhaps due to the dungeon being inside a monster’s body, the scale wasn’t that big. Of course, the fact that there is such a thing inside a monster didn’t make any sense, but the system just made it make sense by saying that it was made of ‘twisted space’.

Having entered the dungeon, Sanghyuk first checked the information about it. In his previous life, he had only heard and not experienced this first hand so there was a need to check on the information about this place.

Secret dungeon [Anteater Dungeon] >C rank<

– Bound to the Dimensional Traveler ‘Immortal’

– Registered Dimensional Travelers [Immortal], [N/A]

: A special dungeon created inside the body of a hellfire anteater. Clearing this dungeon will defeat the rare named monster hellfire anteater.

– Bonus karma : +10%

– Dungeon clear rewards : N/A

– Dungeon all clear rewards : You may acquire a high grade enhancement stone at a very high chance and can acquire many other high quality items.

– Dungeon reactivation time after clearance : 1 minute.

– Dungeon duration : 24 hours.

– Maximum clear times : 40 times.

‘It’s just as I knew it.’

Sanghyuk nodded his head and made a relieved expression.

‘Then shall I start quickly?’

Sanghyuk put the ‘First Visitor’ title on the prefix and put on the ‘First Giant Hunter’ in the postfix title and entered the dungeon.

The anteater dungeon was not long as Sanghyuk had expected. It was a one way path structure and was only 800m long so he just needed to kill all the enemies as he went past.

The monsters that spawned the most in the anteater dungeon were giant scorpions and desert firelizards. Monsters called sand soldiers appeared every so often and this was the trickiest thing to hunt.

However, Sanghyuk possessed the natural enemy card of the sand soldiers, ‘air bomb’. A single 1-cost air bomb would instantly slay the sand soldier.

At the end of the dungeon was a pseudo-named monster, the giant zombie ant. Actually, the name actually sounded scary, but it wasn’t scary at all.

18 minutes.

That was the time Sanghyuk took to clear the anteater dungeon once.

‘If I get used to it more, I think I can make it under 15 minutes.’

Having finished the dungeon, Sanghyuk lightly nodded his head and smiled.

The difficulty of the anteater dungeon itself wasn’t that hard.

The problem was that he had to clear it 40 times to all-clear it and defeat the hellfire anteater.

“39 more to go! Let’s do this.”

The most difficult thing in hunting the anteater dungeon, no, the hellfire anteater, was the time constraint.

Sanghyuk had cleared it easily thanks to his specs and his skills, but normal users would require 30 minutes at the minimum with two people.

If the anteater dungeon wasn’t cleared 40 times in 24 hours, the hellfire anteater would just disappear into the sand again. Once that happened, it would all go naught. Even if a piece of desert wolf meat brought it back up, the anteater dungeon would be initialized.

Actually, the anteater dungeon wasn’t such a profitable dungeon. In fact, there were extremely limited things to earn considering that it was a C rank secret dungeon.

However, all-clearing the dungeon and killing the hellfire anteater would reverse all of that.

The rare named monster hellfire anteater was a very ‘juicy’ monster.

Not only did it drop a lot of items, but their qualities were also top-notch as well. Moreover, the high grade enhancement stone dropped almost all the time.

So, he had to kill the hellfire anteater by clearing the dungeon all 40 times.

12 hours and 41 minutes.

Sanghyuk grinded in that dungeon without a single moment of rest. And eventually…… he killed the 40th giant zombie ant and finally defeated the hellfire anteater.

You have cleared the anteater dungeon.

The moment Sanghyuk cleared the anteater dungeon, the dungeon disappeared and Sanghyuk was ejected out, and at the same time the hellfire anteater hiding in the sand was pulled outside.

Then, it collapsed and died.

It was quite strange to see a rare named monster dying without him doing anything, but that couldn’t be helped since this was the only way to kill it.

Sanghyuk took the items that were dropped from this guy and finished up.

‘After a little rest…… let’s go again.’

Sanghyuk was planning to kill 10 consecutive hellfire anteaters and come back 3 months later and kill 10 again at that time. He was planning to monopolize the anteater dungeon before it was known to others.

Hellfire anteater, there was definitely value in monopolizing it.

***

Sanghyuk kept grinding for ten days straight while resting three hours a day. As a result, he could hunt all ten, one per day, hellfire anteaters. Since he killed ten of them, he would have to wait another three months for them to appear again, so he didn’t need to worry about hellfire anteaters for another three months.

Like that, Sanghyuk took the ten high grade enhancement stones he had acquired from killing 10 hellfire anteaters and went to Tune.

He had one objective…… to upgrade his main weapon the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

The reason he had gathered high grade enhancement stones was also to safely upgrade the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

Currently, he had only upgraded the whip to +3, the safe value, anymore, and he would risk destroying it.

Having arrived at the only renowned-tier enhancement NPC that only existed in Tune, Sanghyuk checked the high grade enhancement stone that he had got.

High grade enhancement stone [Special ingredient item]

– A stone that possesses mysterious powers. It feels like something amazing may happen with it.

[Basic effects] Upgrades an item.

[Special effect] Unlike normal enhancement stones, this contains a special energy that allows the item to not break or decrease in upgrade effect until +6.

[Bonus effect] Sometimes…… it may go up by +2 and not +1 due to a ‘double upgrade’ effect.

With enough enhancement stones, he could upgrade to +6 safely.

‘There’s a bonus effect at +5…… I want it to go up to at least +5…….’

Item enhancements were different from skill enhancements and as the enhancement continued, the basic stats of the item increased. Of course, it wasn’t like there was absolutely no enhancement effects. +5, +7, +9 and +10 had bonus effects.

Honestly, the high-grade enhancement won’t allow the item to break or go lower, but the percentage of success didn’t change.

From +4 onwards, the chance of a successful enhancement was extremely low, so it was likely that he wouldn’t reach +5 even after spending all 10 high grade enhancement stones.

‘A +5. Let’s just go with that.’

In his previous life, Sanghyuk wasn’t so lucky with his enhancements. He was unlucky to the point that he was called the minus hand. He broke so many weapons thanks to that.

It was to the point that the managers of the workshop forbid him to do that.

“Fuu…….”

After taking a deep breath, he let the renowned-tier enhancement NPC and gave him one high grade enhancement stone and a +3 Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

He could rush it by giving him all 10 right up, but the unlucky events in his previous life made him refrain from doing so. Actually, he was in a completely different situation from his previous life, so there was no need to be so nervous about the outcome of the enhancement…… but it was his body that reacted and not his mind.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

The enhancement NPC chanted a strange spell and attempted to upgrade.

Flash! Light spread from his hand.

‘Seep!’

Sanghyuk wanted the light to seep into the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip. If the light seeped into the item the enhancement would succeed, and if the light dissipated outwards, then the enhancement would fail.

*Paaaah, tsssss!*

‘It worked!’

Perhaps due to his desperate wish, or just his luck, the light successfully seeped into the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

“It’s successful. I need more enhancement stones if you wish to continue.”

Sanghyuk gave the NPC three high grade enhancement stones this time. Since he had succeeded the roughly 50% chance of upgrading from +3 to +4, he would achieve his objective if he successfully just made it +5.

The chance of going to +5 from a +4 was known to be around 20%. It could be seen as better off compared to the 10% chance from +5 to +6, but it was definitely not a high percentage.

It was rather fortunate that renowned-tier NPCs didn’t have any penalties. Normal enhancement NPCs with a lower price had much lower percentages.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

Once again, light could be seen, and it immediately…….

*Psssss, paah!*

…dissipated.

“Urgh…….”

Sanghyuk felt bitter but he had expected this so he kept on watching calmly.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

The NPC continued his attempt.

*Flash…… Pssssss, paah!*

Dissipated once again…….

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

*Flash…… Pssssss, paah!*

Dissipated yet again.

Three consecutive failures.

Three high grade enhancement stones were gone in an instant. High grade enhancement stones didn’t even exist in the market right now, so it was literally priceless.

Considering how the average price of high grade enhancement stones was around 150 to 200 thousand gold, Sanghyuk had just blown up 8 million won (8,000 USD) in the span of 10 seconds.

“Fuu…….”

Sanghyuk sighed deeply and calmed his heart down.

‘You knew that this wouldn’t be easy.’

Sanghyuk’s shaking didn’t make much sense considering how he had more than 10 million gold in his bank. He once again reminded himself of reality and gave the NPC the remaining 6 enhancement stones.

‘I’ll just blow it all! Let’s go!’

Sanghyuk boldly bet everything and watched for the result.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

*Flash*, the light once again poured out…….

*Paaa, tssss!*

…and properly seeped in this time.

“That’s it!”

Sanghyuk gripped his fist and nodded.

“There are five enhancement stones left. Are you going to continue?”

Looking at the +5 Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip, the NPC looked at Sanghyuk and asked.

“Yes, I wish to continue.”

Sanghyuk nodded his head in reply. Since he had come here thinking that he would have to spend all 10 here, he wasn’t planning to stop right now.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

The enhancement NPC kept going as Sanghyuk wished.

Light flashed three times more in his hand, but all three times, the light dissipated.

Now, there were two more high grade enhancement stones.

Although Sanghyuk wasn’t pressured since he reached +5, he still wanted to make it a +6 if possible.

“As-salakum in God’s name!”

However, the 9th light was different from the ones before it.

‘Rainbow light! Double upgrade effect!’

Sanghyuk widened his eyes to chase the rainbow light.

Sanghyuk’s eyes looked more desperate than ever before.

***

Translator’s notes

As-salakum seems to be author’s random variation of the words ‘As-salāmu ʿalaykum’, which means ‘Peace be with you’ or something along those lines… Which seems pretty ironic to me. Were you EVER at peace while upgrading an item? Probably not.