Who Designed This Underworld Dungeon?
Chapter 141 - 133: Lifestyle Dungeon

Chapter 141: Chapter 133: Lifestyle Dungeon

It hasn’t been long since the last major overhaul of the Sain Dungeon.

Surprisingly, another big change is about to take place soon, and it involves modifying another dungeon, which excites Gong Qiying while also leaving him somewhat exhausted.

After all, it’s not always possible to be brimming with inspiration.

A map is spread out on his desk; it’s a rough map of the Yanor Kingdom, on which he locates Bed City and Val City.

The distance between the two cities, if one were to travel by horse-drawn carriage without rest, would take nearly two days—a long journey for ordinary people, but all too close for dungeons. So close, in fact, that there would inevitably be competition between Sain and Val for visitor traffic.

This issue is unavoidable, as there will always be some who originally belonged to Sain venturing into the Val Dungeon.

Fortunately, both dungeons are under the control of Gong Qiying, so no matter where people choose to adventure, the spiritual power will ultimately end up in his pocket.

But... if Val continues to use a similar setup to Sain, there will inevitably be an overlap between those who choose to go there and those who choose to go to Sain, akin to "harvesting the same crop of customers." Though the business is thriving now, in the future, the number of these people might plateau after reaching a certain level.

Thus, Val must change and differentiate itself from Sain!

"To sum it up, I want to expand the circle," Gong Qiying mumbled to himself.

By utilizing unique elements in Val Dungeon to attract those indifferent to Sain Dungeon, he aims to increase the flow of visitors and thus gather more spiritual power.

It’s a good idea, but execution is another matter.

"One thing must be clear, the design must not deviate from my original intention."

What is his original intention? Of course, it’s to trap people.

"Under the premise of trapping people, I want Val Dungeon to have elements different from Sain."

No matter what it is—be it organizational forces or a novel game—successful expansion means never doing one thing: abandoning old customers.

Unless no old customers were kept from the start.

Take the Elden Ring as an example; it added many elements not present in prior Soul games—maps, open worlds, ashes, and many wheelchair-compatible weapons and spells. Many old Soul V players criticized it for reduced difficulty and lack of the original "Soul" feel, saying it has become too merciful.

Yet, it sold incredibly well, achieving unprecedented popularity compared even to Sekiro, which also won Game of the Year.

Why? Aside from the stellar quality of the game, the lowered difficulty and new elements significantly drew in a large number of newcomers, enabling most who aren’t as skilled to enjoy the game simply by continually casting spells as a magician while the monsters’ health bars depleted on their own.

The lowered difficulty allowed Elden Ring to successfully expand its audience, but the old Soul Travel players formed the base; combining the two helped Elden Ring truly take off.

This is a successful case of expanding the audience, while there are plenty of failures in gaming that are sure to disappoint.

So whatever new elements Val Dungeon intends to add must strictly adhere to Gong Qiying’s original philosophy—the ancestral methods must not change!

Gong Qiying believes that Val Dungeon and any future dungeons added could collectively be termed as "Sain System" dungeons.

Sain System dungeons might close down, but they will never degrade!

So, how should Val differentiate from Sain? This is where the treasures left by predecessors come in.

Due to Kirich’s circumstances, Val Dungeon will never shut down, and Gong Qiying currently has no authority to change this, so...

Why not turn it into a living-type dungeon?

If it can attract a group of people to settle inside, it would be akin to having a continuous vein of spiritual power output, undoubtedly easing his days significantly.

"Alright, that’s settled,"

Having established the design direction, Gong Qiying, after a moment of contemplation, decides to stick to Sain’s initial design, turning Val Dungeon into a classic multi-tier dungeon, where one can continually conquer lower floors.

If the goal is to attract people to live inside, then it’s best not to make significant changes after opening. Any desired additions can be achieved by adding new levels.

Each level should contain several habitable areas. Except for the first level’s safe zone which can be unlocked unconditionally, other residential spots must meet specific conditions, like clearing out monsters or solving puzzles.

But safe zones can’t be safe forever; it wouldn’t do to let residents rest easy indefinitely. Thus, he plans to design periodic monster attacks, but unlike in "Seven Days Kill," the monsters that come to attack won’t get progressively stronger.

"Monster attacks are just a means to provide psychological thrill, so..."

Gong Qiying thinks for a moment and decides to design a monster attack for each safe zone that fits its background, and these monster attacks can be avoided or defended against by certain means.

In "Dying Light", every safe zone must turn on ultraviolet lights at night to prevent zombie attacks.

Val Dungeon’s safe zones could adopt a similar setup, such as lighting torches or continuously using Lighting Techniques at night. As long as adventurers follow the rules, they will remain unharmed. However, if they carelessly forget to do so, then they’ll have to fight the monsters.

The focus of a living-type dungeon is always the dungeon, not the living.

His design aims to have adventurers reside there for a period to explore, not to actually settle down and start families.

If people truly wanted to settle down, why wouldn’t they opt for the safer outside world?

"Perhaps one day when the Demon Clan sweeps across the world and the outside becomes more dangerous, the surviving people might run into the Dungeon for refuge.

The safe area is temporarily set like this, then the main event comes.

How should the tricky part be done?

Undoubtedly, if people really live here long term, the traps fixed in certain areas, other than First-time Kills, would hardly be able to trap anyone.

So Gong Qiying needs to work hard on the Monsters.

To make people live in the Dungeon, the Dungeon can’t be too out of the ordinary, and the same goes for Monsters, the ecology between the Monsters and the environment must be well managed.

"Like skeleton monsters that rely on traps and terrain to deceive people, they are not usable, then perhaps choose Elite Monsters."

"Divide the Monsters into ecological Monsters and plot monsters,"

Ecological Monsters are responsible for supporting the exploration experience of this layer, plot monsters are responsible for fragmented narratives, dropping some props with background descriptions.

Each layer can have a little story, to add a sense of immersion.

"And then... the most common Monsters shouldn’t be too strong, and they shouldn’t require too much spiritual power,"

If the Monsters here were all like the Blast Scale Dragon, Golden Lion, and Gluttonous Demon Dragon, even Silver Rank adventurers would be reluctant to come.

Since people are allowed to live in the Dungeon, Monsters shouldn’t be able to instantly kill them, there should at least be a chance to escape.

So those that can go up are the Lune Bear, Big Lobster, Green Bear Beast, Big Strange Bird, and each layer might have one or two Blast Scale Dragon-level Monsters to patrol and blow up fish.

"The choice of Monsters is a big hassle..."

Gong Qiying noted this issue down in his notebook, it couldn’t possibly be done in one day.

How to design the environment of each layer is also a major task, since each layer is independent of each other, the differences can be made bigger.

"Maybe investigate what the adventurers are interested in lately," he thought to himself, "design each layer according to their needs."

Has there been a heavyweight character in Bed City recently that could inspire his design for a layer?

Gong Qiying rubbed his brows, just thinking about these was enough to give him a headache.

Safe area, types of Monsters, environmental design...

In addition to these three issues, there was one more thing.

"How to make adventurers willing to stay here for four or five days or even a week or two weeks?"

Apart from rich resources, the first thing he thought of was to arrange some items that require a long waiting time to obtain, just like in cultivation novels, where the protagonist guards an immature spiritual fruit for seven days and nights to get something, perhaps it could also add a scene that requires staying multiple days to obtain a certain state.

Hmm... maybe also a dream that makes one dream for many days?

What needs to be clear is that Val Underworld should follow a slow and steady approach, which means that its daily production of spiritual power might fall short compared to Sain.

To reduce costs, the resources that appear here can’t consume too much spiritual power.

"Even if I just set up a field that could double the food production, people would come."

Gong Qiying slumped onto the altar, sighing deeply, feeling like his brain was overloaded.

When he began to seriously design the Dungeon, he realized that there were more and more things to consider, and his brain felt inadequate.

It would be great if he had someone to share some of his pressure now.

He caressed the Knowledge Crystal left by Kidd, talking to himself:

"If you could birth a consciousness, like the artificial intelligence like the Red Queen, that would be great, and if not, just chatting with me would also do."

The Knowledge Crystal remained motionless, perhaps it never should have reacted.

Given Gong Qiying’s current efficiency, managing to design the rudimentary structure of Val Underworld within two weeks would be considered highly efficient.

Two weeks... speaking of which, he was about to have a battle to the death with Evil Nest Dungeon soon, during this time he really couldn’t invest spiritual power in designing Val Underworld.

He had to save up a wave of spiritual power, only after the battle with Evil Nest Dungeon would he be able to start working on the construction of Val.

"By the way, how much spiritual power do I have right now?"

As Gong Qiying opened the City Lord interface, he suddenly opened his mouth wide.

Why did it suddenly increase so much?

Taking another look at the Crystal Ball, he seemed to understand the reason.

An old man in a loose robe was going berserk in Fran Fort.

It was Sword Saint Jia Pael."