Void was alone in his cordoned off section at the back of the room. He motioned at the table filled with food. I guess being a millennial has its perks. They don’t even have to go to the main tables like everyone else, Peter thought as he looked at the selection.

  “I guess first things first,” Void stated. A moment later, Peter got the trade offer. “Now you have legitimately obtained my card type, so won’t have to make deals with blacklisted cores.”

  Peter froze, but Void just chuckled. “Don’t worry I can appreciate a young core’s ambition. If I could in any way contort my mind to conceive Design of being a like type to my own I would gladly offer you a place in my faction. Technically, I would be the concept millennial although like the fire elemental I narrow the scope of who I let it, leaving you guys high and dry.”

  “As far as Abyss. I mainly just keep an eye on him, so that I can watch him squirm. Not particularly to find and punish cores… He is the only one I’ve ever blacklisted. I only did so because he forced my hand at it. Now the dragon is the only one that hasn’t, although he did wipe out a centurion that was only 200 years old once, so I guess it evens out.”

  “Can I ask what's the point in blacklisting cores when you can just wipe them as long as they’re over 101,” Peter asked.

  “Goes into millennial specific knowledge. I’ll tell you, but it will be for yourself, not for you to propagate it out there. Of course, if we find you saying what you know it would mean the end,” Void cut his hand across his throat.’

  Peter still nodded. Knowledge was power. Even if it was not all together helpful he would love to sate his curiosity.

  “Very well… Just don’t consider yourself special. I tell all the cores I bring into my faction, as well as a few others. Normally, I wait till you’re they are a bit older, but I guess we can take care of you now.”

  “The simple answer as to why we don’t just cull all dungeons on year 101 is that we can’t. We have to pay costs to challenge cores. There is a substantial increase for attacking something each time you pass the century or decade threshold. The jump from 900 to 899 is a good bit. Still hitting something in the 800’s is quite affordable for us, but to hit something down in the 200’s I can’t even imagine the cost. Normally we wait until the mid 900’s since there are smaller jumps from decade to decade. Not to mention we don’t really get rewards for our effort. I’m sure you can see why we wait, and why we also split the culling between ourselves.”

  Peter nodded, he had expected it to some extent. “So blacklisting is your way to curtail potential threats or perhaps to save resources?” Peter asked.

  “It is for the younger millennials, like I said Dragon and I don’t really do it. Either of us would gladly welcome an actual challenge. I only blacklisted Abyss because of a major grievance he committed.”

  Peter’s eyes widened. What on earth could a younger core possibly do to this guy? The only thing he could think of was perhaps trading around Void’s type cards or something of the sort. Unless he did something dumb like running his mouth against the milleneal.

  “You seem stumped. Couldn’t imagine what Abyss could have possibly done to me. Don’t worry I’ll tell you. He tried to steal a SS tier unit from me. His own master, can you believe it,” Void said with a chuckle.

  Peter was confused. How could someone steal another dungeon's units?

  “O baby core, you still don’t know half of what is possible. Perhaps you have heard of cores that do operations against one another outside the dungeon, well there is a next step, infiltration… Ooo you think I’m making it up,” Void chuckled.

  Peter grimaced he had apparently not been able to hide the ‘that’s preposterous expression from his face.

  “You won’t really see it in battles since it would be difficult to implant your units on the other side, but for a collection dungeon on the other hand, it is quite possible. Of course you have to be able to spoof that your unit belongs there. I’ll let you try to figure out how to do that yourself.”

  “What would be the reason? To destroy their core?”

  “Nope, stealing knowledge or even units,” Void smiled wickedly. Peter did not like the sound of that. How could you convert someone’s unit to your own? Then again if you could make your unit appear like the other cores what couldn’t you do.

  “Abyss like I said just overstepped. I guided him along, the nerve to infiltrate his own master’s dungeon. Then to let his greed run wild, trying to steal a SS tier. Ambitious, but foolish as well. Infiltration with the same type card is a lot easier. Abyss of course had plenty of my own to choose from… Of course doors can swing both ways. All the many various units and card types you have would make it all the easier…”

  That was an extremely troubling thought. He had just added out of the dungeon operations. Now he had to consider entering others dungeons or counter insurgence of core’s entering his own.

  “Don’t be nervous about all this, It's mainly a game played by centenarians. Even successes don’t matter all that much. What is losing an S tier when you have 100 more. Now what other questions do you have? I’ll answer a few more. Think of this as a one time ‘tell all,’ a reward for quite a showing as a rookie.”

  Peter was basically salivating. He had so many questions, if only he could remember them right now. Thankfully, he had Boris to fall back on. “What can you tell me about the interface, you and Dragon were among the first few year groups, right? What came before that?”

  “Oooo…” Void got serious. “You are a curious one. That knowledge will not really help you as much as some other questions could, but then again… Who am I to say what will be the most useful to you. Let me just start by saying that Dragon and I had to infer quite a bit of this since we were not around prior to the interface. That being said, the signs were all there since it was relatively fresh.”

  Peter could not help but to lean forward eagerly. Void was basically getting into the secret of their existence.

  “We can say for certain there was a world prior to the interface. Except since there was no regulation, dungeon cores just popped into existence randomly. Once again they could all create monsters, and unlike now there were no penalties for sending units outside your dungeon or even the concept of floors and other rules we take for granted. What do you expect happened in a world like that?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Peter was a bit stumped, but he had to say something. Lucky Boris was using the raw facts and computing an answer. He internally smiled at the thought. Back on Earth using AI to answer a teacher’s question would have gotten him in trouble.

  “I would imagine cores would strip the surface bare of all experience, carrying things back into their dungeon, in a sort of arms race. Once that was done they would turn on each other.”

  “That is precisely what we expect occurred,” Void said looking toward the front screens. “But it did not stop there. One by one all the cores started falling to one another, until there was likely only one left. One that had incorporated the entire planet.”

  “Are you saying we are a bunch of dungeons inside of a dungeon?” Peter asked, shocked.

  “That is the conclusion that we came to. God the interface won the struggle, but now had nothing left to do or accomplish. Let me tell you from someone that's lived for several millenea, time can wear you down. You either become a cynical old man like myself, give into base feelings like Dragon, or become childish like some of the others.”

  Void was clearly referencing the demon millennial, who to Peter seemed like someone trying to fool herself into her own hype.

  “Anyways, the interface repopulated its surface and started this game, this dungeon wars. Perhaps to relive its own glory days, but it also potentially likes to watch the surface populace struggle and fight each other as well. In the first years, until the end of the first millennia, the interface was tweaking things pretty regularly. It made it more costly for us to operate on the surface. It made the three divisions to keep the old from preying on the weak. After all, nobody wants to watch a one sided fight.”

  The implications of it all were staggering. If the interface was just one giant dungeon then it could simply blink any one of them from existence, but as he thought of it, it made sense. Things like the balance law were quite subjective. If it was just one giant core, it was trying to keep things fair for its own entertainment. It brought to mind another question he had always thought about.

  “Why us? Why does it bring in outside entities to be cores for itself?”

  “If you thought about it long enough, I’m sure you could think of the answer yourself, but since I’m not planning to entertain you for much longer, I’ll just answer it. How much fun could the interface have, if it was designing the competitors? It would be like you having the say in every aspect between two units, and then asking them to fight. The interface sets the board, establishes rules, and then brings in outside entities to see what they will do with it. We are the randomness to what would otherwise be a known equation.”

  “Now let me answer one final question that you haven’t asked. Why the millennials? why the factions? Culminating in why I’m sharing all this with you,” Void said, leaving the questions hanging. Peter did indeed want the answers to these.

  “For starters, there are only 6 millennials by design of the interface. If we allowed another core to reach year 1,000 a random millennial would blink from existence to make room for the new one. Which leads to the culling, but restrictions on doing so.”

  That made sense to Peter. If the interface let there be a bunch of old monsters, then it would not drive the conflict it wanted. On the other hand having millennials closed the system, and gave a near impossible goal for cores to work towards.

  “Next, so why the factions… I guess you can blame the undead, demon, and elemental millennials for that, since they all became millennials at around the same time, although the insect millennial jumped on board when she became one. For the first several thousand years, Dragon, myself, and the other millennials were fighting off 900 year old cores left and right. Now those were exciting times. Just like all you developing cores, there was always a question of if one of us would fall.”

  “Of course millennial turnover occurred on occasion, with Dragon and myself being the only two able to hold off from the beginning. Still it got tiring after a while, so the undead, demon, and elemental millennials started pushing factions to fight against one another in the lower division, so that fewer survived long enough. The strain on us was lessened. It was nice for a while, between the five of us we rarely had to cull dungeons anymore. Each was responsible for culling their own factions, except for myself since there is an exorbitant amount of concept cores. Instead their factions were allowed to incorporate concept cores similar to their kind into their faction, and I would take on a greater number of non millennial sponsored faction cores.

  Eventually, they pushed to allow for the sixth position to be filled. Don’t let the bugs fool you. It was not because we could not be bothered to take on the little she-spider, it was simply because it was exhausting to kill off the bug dungeon cores ourselves. Then came a spider who was perfect for the job of catching and eating all the smaller bugs and other arthropods.”

  Void leaned in conspiratorially. “Its kind of a running joke to use. One of the few things that will make me fall down in laughter, remembering the discussions the five of us had leading up to it. I guess after that the rest is history. Not much changed after that.”

  Peter tried to keep his expression neutral. Void was like some old guy talking about the glory days, and now the second oldest millennial was like some rundown middle aged man bored with his unexciting life. He could not help, but to smile at the thought that they had intentionally allowed a spider to join their ranks to deal with the insects. He had always found that amusing himself. Apparently, it had always been by design.

  “So finally, why am I telling this to you? The short answer is that you have had an impressive run. Your year group in general has battled more than I have ever seen, and you have led that charge battling every year. Reminds me of the good ole times. Anyways thanks to our implementation of the faction system, the interface made a few stipulations of its own. Millennials could not attack cores inside their own factions until year 950 or later without facing far steeper penalties. If one of the millennials was beaten by a core from its own faction, then the new core would simply replace the old. If however a core from outside one of the set factions beat a millennial, then it would have to continue until all the millennials were replaced.”

  Peter’s jaw dropped open. “You’re saying I don’t have to beat just one, but all of you,” he asked incredulously.

  “Not necessarily by yourself, and don’t worry, could you imagine what rewards the interface would give you for beating a dungeon over 4,000 years older than you…? Plus there is a 10 year courtesy period between millennials. You would have already taken out one of us, so it would be fine if that period takes you over the millennia line. That being said we would have to continue culling dungeons behind you or deal with the same issue.”

  Peter nodded. “So why are you telling me then?”

  “Because like I said you have impressed me. Unlike the other millennials Dragon and I were against the millennial system, but we were outnumbered 3 to 2. I’m sure you can imagine how bored the two of us are now after millennia of fighting for our lives. The two of us would love the actual challenge of young cores rising up. We each take it differently however. Dragon just wallows around in apathy, rousing himself to cull as required, but otherwise tries not to think on things. I however prepare a few challenges for myself, or my own faction. Unlike the other millennials I actively work to make them a challenge for myself. I sometimes extend those to others like yourself.”

  “I’m not saying, I think you will make it that far. That is a long time from now, and my protégé next year will not be a joke. Unlike the other millennials, Dragon and I would love for our proteges to become stronger. Of course that crazy lizard just gives them all dragon cards since they are the most powerful, but I give a good sampling of type cards. Not to mention, I even traded Stone golem, some restricted type cards. Plus the years worth of accumulated essence, he might even prove too much for you. Not to mention, trying to take on all the insects the year after that. You are simply too crazy, but if you somehow make it through, just know that I will be eagerly waiting at the top for you.”

  Void had clearly finished the conversation soon after that, dismissing Peter. Peter did not mind. His mind was nearly fully blown. He walked back nearly in a daze, and would have forgotten to tell Elyra about the demon millennial’s summon if not for Boris.