Friday arrived quickly.

Four days of steady training had passed in what felt like no time at all. Noah had worked through each one without breaking the routine.

Weapon practice in the morning, mana circulation in the evening, spell work fitted in between. The progress was small day by day, but he could feel it accumulating.

Damien and the others who had been showing displeasure toward him also started to calm down and talk to him like usual.

Out of all only Lyria was not angry at him, though she was a little bit sad. So Noah decided, he needed to make an exception for her while doing bad things.

So most of his time Noah spent with Draven and Regnar. Those two were quite an amazing pair. Noah’s personality clicked with them better than anyone else.

Noah once again understood that she was such a kind soul.

He also got some beating– no! That’s not the right word to use here. Rather, he also got some training from Morgana, since Noah personally asked her to help him during training class.

And she gladly helped him. And once again Noah understood why students avoided asking for her help and preferred to get help from Instructor Victor.

But well, it was helpful for Noah since he got more to learn from her.

His weapon arts were also improving at a good speed. He tried different weapons to practice his blade art, so it could also help him increase his combatant profession.

By Friday evening, he was standing inside the Crimson Vale Adventurers Guild on Meridian Avenue, the familiar cool temperature of the lobby settling around him as he walked in through the automatic doors.

He wasn’t here for registration this time. He was here for work.

He crossed the lobby toward the large mission board mounted on the far wall. It was a wide screen display, organized by category and rank, updated in real time as missions were taken or completed.

Quest notices filled most of it– escort contracts, material gathering, monster culling requests from nearby settlements, investigation jobs.

Noah scanned through them slowly.

Most of the E and D rank quests were standard. Nothing that particularly caught his attention.

’I want to visit some dungeon and fight monsters. It will be helpful.’

He was looking for something more useful than a simple hunting contract, something that would give him actual combat experience in a contained environment rather than just sending him after a specific target in the open field.

He scrolled to a different section.

Dungeon notices.

There were only a few listed. Most dungeons in the area were well established and already had regular parties cycling through them. Noah read past those and kept looking.

Then he found it.

A new listing. Posted recently, the timestamp only a few days old.

Newly Discovered Dungeon – Forest Region, Eastern Outskirts of Novaris City.

Type: Buried Dungeon

Estimated Rank: E to D

Status: Open. Limited slots available

Minimum Core Requirement: Awakened Core, Low Stage

Noah read it twice.

"Perfect," he muttered while looking at the notice.

’This is what I wanted. I can apply for it. I am strong enough to handle it. So it’s a buried dungeon.’

He thought about the two kinds of dungeons he had learned about in theory classes.

The first type were Rift Dungeons, the kind that appeared suddenly when space tore open.

Floating cracks in the air like shattered glass, light or darkness bleeding out from the inside, the mana around the area warping and distorting.

Those were unpredictable by nature. They appeared without warning, existed for a period of time, and then closed. One couldn’t plan around them the way they could plan around anything else.

The second type was what this listing was describing: a Buried Dungeon. Ancient structures that had always existed somewhere underground, hidden for decades or centuries beneath forests, mountains, ruins, old city foundations.

They didn’t announce themselves. They were found—sometimes by accident, sometimes by dedicated survey teams following mana readings in the ground. Once discovered, they stayed. Permanent entrances.

Spiral stairways descending into deep caverns. Ancient doors covered in moss and carved runes. The kind of place that had been sitting quietly underground since before anyone alive had been born.

This one had just been found, which meant the interior was completely unsurveyed. No established maps. No known monster distribution. No one who had come back to report what was inside.

They were similar to labyrinths. But labyrinths didn’t have many monsters. In rare cases, they had monsters. Rather, they were focused on traps, mazes, illusions, and many more things.

As much as they looked simple, they could be more dangerous than dungeons.

But they were larger, so the chances of getting good treasure were higher.

Noah stopped thinking about that information.

’Alright, then it’s decided. I will go to this dungeon,’ Noah thought.

He turned away from the board and walked to the counter.

The same section of the counter that handled dungeon applications had one staff member on duty—a young woman who looked up as he approached.

Noah placed his adventurer’s guild card on the surface.

"I want to apply for the newly listed buried dungeon. Eastern outskirts. The E to D rank one," he said.

She picked up his card and checked it against her display.

Then she looked back at him with a polite but firm expression.

"Your rank and core level meet the minimum requirement," she said. "However, for first-time dungeon entry at your current level, solo applications aren’t accepted. You need at least one other registered party member applying alongside you."

Noah looked at her for a moment.

"At least one?" he asked.

"At least one," she repeated. "It’s a safety requirement for newly discovered dungeons specifically. The interior is uncharted. We can’t send a single low-ranked adventurer into an unsurveyed dungeon alone."

Noah picked his card back up from the counter, gave her a short nod, and stepped away.

He went to the nearest bench along the side wall of the lobby and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees.

’One person. I just need one person willing to come into an unsurveyed E–D rank dungeon with me on short notice. ’