[Chopped Chili Fish Head]

  A fish head dish that tastes like heaven if properly prepared. The dish demands the utmost care in both ingredient selection and culinary skills, with fire control being of most important. The difficulty of the dish is legendary, with only the most skilled of chefs being able to make even a merely acceptable version.

  The timer started ticking. They had ninety minutes to solve the puzzle. Pos and Umdar looked at each other and did absolutely nothing. After some time, Umdar finally broke the awkward silence, pointing at the image, “So, do you think the dungeon core... is a chef?”

  Pos rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous! How could a dungeon core possibly be a cook? It probably just got this recipe from a book some unlucky adventurer dropped.” He hesitated, thinking for a moment, then shrugged. “Or maybe it was an offering. Maybe someone wanted to see if the Tomb would start dropping books as loot.”

  That was a likely possibility. Most [Scholars] would rather eat their own scrolls than copy books by hand, and hiring them cost a fortune. So, sometimes people just tossed books into dungeons as offering, hoping the dungeon core would reproduce them. Pos heard about a dungeon out west—Ruined Library, Scholar Ruin, whatever it’s called—that’s basically famous for it.

  He walked up to the table and dumped the box of tiles onto the table. Just as he thought, it was a puzzle. He glanced at Umdar. “Want to give this a try? Personally, I’m a little curious about what kind of magical masterpiece this puzzle is hiding.”

  Umdar shook his head. “Better not. I bet it’ll just show us some steaming hot food and make us hungry.”

  Pos laughed. He could see that happening. “Fair point. Let’s go.”

  Ignoring the puzzle, the two dwarfs stepped away from the table and slipped out through the back door. Yes, a back door. Most huts are lucky to get one door, but dungeon architecture was weird like that. Honestly, as a dwarf, dungeon layouts got on Pos’ nerves, but good luck telling a dungeon core their buildings were structurally unsound.

  Pos had never heard of an adventurer stupid enough to do that. Probably because anyone stupid enough to do so was too stupid to be alive.

  As soon as Pos was outside, he spotted Bazel and Barwin loitering by the far wall of the cavern. They were eyeballing a boulder that was almost definitely blocking their way out. The dwarfs trudged over, and the humans noticed them right away.

  “So, what’s your take on these?” Bazel nodded at the boulder, which was covered in some ancient-looking carvings. Both dwarfs just snorted. Everybody knows the Tomb was basically a baby dungeon, so the cravings were not ‘ancient’ at all. However, Pos was too experienced to dismiss them outright. Strange and weird pictures weren’t that rare in dungeons. Some dungeon cores love leaving random nonsense for adventurers to scratch their heads over. Most of it meant nothing, but every now and then, there’s an actual hint of a treasure somewhere.

  “Any of this ring a bell?” Bazel tried again.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Pos squinted at the carvings, and suddenly something clicked. He dug around in his Bag of Holding and fished out his Dungeon Technique scroll. Everyone crowded in, squinting at the pictograms written on it. There was definitely some overlap.

  “What’s it supposed to mean, though?” Barwin mumbled, leaning in like he was about to sniff the boulder.

  “Who knows? Would be nice if our [Sage] was here, she lives for this kind of thing.” Pos gave the hut where Ferdinand and Fabiana were currently in a look. “Think they’ll crack the puzzle, or are we in for a fight?”

  “They’ll be fine. Ferdinand’s a jigsaw fiend, and Fabiana has been spending her free time on puzzles for weeks,” Bazel muttered, shaking his head.

  Barwin let out a chuckle, low and easy. “It’s just a hobby, Bazel. People do stuff for fun, you know. Not everyone’s as uptight as you.”

  “It’s a hobby that started in a dungeon,” Bazel shot back, and Barwin rolled his eyes.

  “No, it’s a hobby made famous by a dungeon. There’s a big difference there. Only The Parthenon knows who invented it. I heard there’s some talk about organizing a tournament or something.”

  Umdar just deadpanned, “At least it’s good practice for the dungeon. Silver linings.”

  Pos side-eyed the [Knight]. Was that a joke? It’s hard to tell with Umdar. He shrugged and plopped down, fishing out snacks from his backpack. He tossed them around, and the group munched away, killing time while waiting for the last two members of their party to finish up. Right on the edge of the time limit, the hut’s door swung open.

  Out came Ferdinand and Fabiana, both grinning like idiots. Ferdinand punched the air, and the boulder behind them slid, revealing a tunnel. They had done it.

  “Cutting it close. Too close,” Pos grumbled as he watched the [Sage] and [Thief] wandered over.

  Barwin just shrugged. “They did it. Save your whining; we still got a lot of ground to cover.”

  That was hard to argue against, so Pos kept quiet and warmly congratulate the returning duo like everyone else. As expected, Fabiana was all about those etchings. However, they were on a delve and even she knew better than to take time with them. The [Sage] whipped out a spell.

  She glided up to the boulder, fingers tracing the pictograms, then pulled out a blank scroll and waved her hand over it. Barwin gave a low whistle as fresh symbols shimmered onto the parchment. Fabiana had used magic to copy down the cravings.

  “Handy spell,” Pos said, nodding. “You know you could make good gold copying books with that spell?”

  Fabiana shook her head. “It costs too much mana to be worth it. Plus, you have any idea how many books you’d have to copy to level up? No? I don’t know neither because no one’s ever managed it. It’s too much of a slog.”

  Pos raised an eyebrow. If even a bookworm of a [Sage] thought copying was torture, it must really be terrible. With that, the party headed down the tunnel, where a chest sat waiting. It was the classic dungeon setup.

  “Ha, time for a [Thief] to do his thing!” Ferdinand cackled, practically skipping to the chest.

  Everyone else knew the drill. They backed up. There was no cover though, so Umdar raised up his tower shield and Fabiana tossed a spell, wrapping them in a shimmering barrier, for protection. It looked a lot like [Arcane Shield] to Pos, only bigger and fancier. He hoped it works just as well.

  Ferdinand crouched low, checked the chest, and slid a dagger under the lid, just enough to peek inside. A wicked grin split his face. The [Thief] did not hesitate. He activated a skill or maybe a couple, Pos couldn’t tell. Suddenly, Ferdinand’s arm stretched out, skinny and weirdly long, just thin enough to slip through the crack. Fast as lightning, he snaked his arm in and yanked it back out. The halfling’s arm snapped back to normal with a book clutched tight. Barwin whistled again, and Pos couldn’t help the approving grunt. He could see why the halfling has the reputation he did. Most thieves would have triggered the trap and just dodged out of the way, but Ferdinand just straight-up stole the loot from right under the dungeon’s nose.

  System Skills or not, that was real talent. Ferdinand was the genuine article. A real [Thief]. Fabiana, already running over, hollered, “What’s it say?”

  Ferdinand flipped through the pages, brow furrowed in confusion. “The Printing Press by, uh… Gu Ten Bu? Seriously, what kind of name is that?”