During the wait time between The Crazy One leaving and its disciples coming The Core was obsessively checking its dungeon.

  It did that before the human came in to prepare for a raid but now that this visit was gearing up to be a simple, hopefully proper, dungeon visit it needed to look into different things.

  Such as the quality of resources and treasures, that it did inspect before, but now it needed to do it again to see if it should change something.

  The Core also repopulated the first floor but in a more absent minded way than usual.

  It didn't need strong monsters, it needed an enticing prize so that more Invaders would come and it could absorb their souls and lifeforce faster.

  Finally after an undetermined amount of time, which The Core decided was too long no matter the answer, the third batch of invaders arrived.

  It couldn't determine whether the interlopers were strong or not as they seemed to be basing their power on Qi rather than mana but judging off of the performance on the first floor The Core decided that they were rather weak.

  The first few to step into its dungeon were quite surprised to find enemies on the first floor and fumbled their way through the first few exchanges between the monsters as though they didn't expect them to be there.

  But how could there be a monster-less dungeon?

  Although their performance improved after they got over their shock it still didn't increase much so The Core's evaluation of them didn't change.

  The subsequent challengers who entered fared much better, by virtue of the first few taking out quite a bit of the first floor monster rather than because they themselves were more skilled.

  Nonetheless The Core couldn't help but feel joy seeing them search through every corner of its first floor.

  They even noticed the chest that the previous group of interlopers failed to spot and looked at what was inside, which the first two of its invaders didn't even attempt to do, finding a handful of copper coins and a sword inside.

  None of them seemed anywhere impressed with this reward but The Core didn't care because it was the first treasure chest out of many. And it's not like they didn't take it with them.

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  These invaders truly felt like an beginner adventuring party that had come to invade its dungeon.

  It didn't need to lead them to its dungeon nor were they as strong as the previous party which The Core wouldn't have survived if not for the lucky whatever it was that made The Only One die so easily.

  The second floor was handled in a much worse manner than the first.

  They didn't seem to be cautious of the Kiselina Shrooms at all, just like their predecessors, although unlike them they weren't immune to the mushroom's spores.

  They weren't purposefully touching the shrooms so the amount inhaled was small but some were already coughing.

  Weirdly none of them mentioned a burning sensation nor made a move to retreat. Were they simply more resistant compared to the average adventurer from the manual?

  It also seemed that they couldn't sense what was going on underground and could only rely on the vibrations stemming from the Overgrown Worms digging close to the surface, leading to three not noticing them, being swallowed and thus dying.

  [ 5/10 sapients killed ]

  The Core couldn't have been happier if it tried. And they hadn't even encouraged Digger Worms yet!

  Unlike The Core's expectation this batch of invaders seemed proficient enough in combat to not die to said monster. Completely unlike their encounter with the first floor's monsters.

  They also took good care of the Armored Beetle's guarding the chests even if some of them got injured during the process.

  Maybe they weren't used to fighting flying enemies? But they also struggled with Silent Rat's and those didn't know how to fly, so was it the smaller size that was the cause of their struggle?

  Either way it was happy that it now knew what could cause them trouble and that more Invaders were close to death's door.

  It was because the humans that entered the dungeon later on and thus also arrived at the second floor with a delay began to pick the Kiselina shrooms without sufficient preparation, if they prepared at all and thus after one deep inhale of a massive amount of the Kiselina Shrooms spores began to cough out blood as the spores landed in their lungs, melting the delicate tissue located there.

  The Core wasn't surprised that they didn't know about the mushrooms true nature because of the rest of their batches behaviour but it was startled that the spores were causing as much damage as they appeared to.

  Weren't they supposed to be more resistant? Or was it only the first few?

  The harmed invaders quickly realised the reason for said harm, dropped the shrooms and started to evacuate, causing The Core immense disappointment as even if they died it wouldn't count towards its progress.

  Shouldn't those invaders have a shred of decency and die within its halls instead of outside when the cause of their death was one of its own creations?

  At least the other Invaders didn't seem to care about the rest of their own kin fates, instead beginning to take greater distance between the glowing shrooms.

  It didn't change the fact that some already inhaled their spores but at least it gave The Core hope that maybe they weren't as resistant as previously expected.

  The Core couldn't wait for those few to start fighting and see what exactly happens when they start to strain their lungs.