I opened an adventurer's guild in another world.

Although there are hundreds of books, most of them are already arranged in order, with only a dozen or so out of order.

The lich quickly placed all the gilded magic-inscribed books in the correct positions according to the magic circle pattern on the journal.

In this way, the magic array patterns composed of these gold-plated runes can be recognized at a glance.

However, the magic circle was not activated after it returned to its original position.

"Where's the portal?"

Liz looked at the motionless bookshelf and asked in confusion, "Did it fail?"

The lich shook his head and said, "No, it's probably a lack of energy!"

The magic array is set up, but without energy to activate it, there will naturally be no movement.

Anno stepped forward and observed for a while, and then in the center of the magic circle, he found a book with a dull gem the size of an egg embedded in its spine.

The lich grabbed the gem with his hand and, with a little force, pried it off after it had run out of magic.

"This should be it!"

The lich looked at the black hole in the spine of the book and said to Anno, "Master, as long as we put a source of magic power in here, it should be able to activate magic!"

Anno took out a concentrated magic crystal from his storage ring, held it up to the empty space on the spine of the book, and found that the size was just right.

Concentrated Magic Crystals are consumables required for the Dragon Scorpion Tail Cannon Sword.

Anno only had five coins.

However, in order to explore whether the hypothesis about the portal was correct, Anno did not hesitate to put the crystal in her hand into it.

Ding~!

Like the sound of a hammer striking a block of iron, the crystal was directly sucked into the groove.

Then an invisible wave of magical energy began to spread outwards from the crystal.

Anno took a few steps back and then saw the gold-plated magic patterns gradually become covered with a layer of light.

Once all the magic runes were 'lit up,' a large number of magic lines began to spread in the air, starting from the gold-plated magic rune, and connected with the magic runes extending from other gold-plated magic runes, converging into a complete magic circle.

"What a masterpiece! I wonder who created this magic array!"

As the magic circle took shape, the lich couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Although Anno was only a novice when it came to magic arrays, he was still capable of seventh-tier magic and had even personally inscribed a divine array under Philomena's guidance.

Therefore, Anno could also sense that the magic array in front of him was very advanced.

After the magic circle was fully formed, a continuously expanding vortex suddenly appeared in front of the bookshelf.

After expanding to a diameter of two meters, the vortex stabilized and took shape.

"Master, we succeeded!"

The lich looked at the portal in front of him and said excitedly, "Should we go in and take a look?"

Seeing that the portal was very stable and wouldn't disappear anytime soon, Anno lowered his head and pondered for a while.

The appearance of the portal confirmed the authenticity of Truman's notes and showed that Antoine really did send hundreds or thousands of slaves into the portal.

But here is the problem.

If the portal leads to the dungeon mentioned in the journal, why would Antoine send so many slaves into it?

Most importantly, how did Antoine manage to read the journal?

Where did Antoine get these books with gold foil patterns?

"Ella, have all the adventurers, soldiers, and servants in the manor leave first."

Anno was worried about the dangers of exploring the portal later, so he planned to have his men retreat first.

This is simply an insurance practice.

Antoine likely used the teleportation array more than once.

Since he hadn't encountered any problems, Anno felt that the level of danger inside shouldn't be too great.

However, safety measures should still be in place.

"yes!"

After Ella responded, she immediately carried out Anno's instructions.

Although Hansen and the butler outside were puzzled, they obediently left the manor.

After these people left the manor, Anno had the lich, the demon Buck, and a group of humanoid summons use [Shadow Summoning], and then sent the shadows into the vortex as an advance team.

Before the summoned creatures' shadows entered the vortex, Anno ordered them to return in five minutes.

If they don't return by the appointed time, Anno will have the Lich and Buck's main bodies dispel their abilities.

Of course, it's possible that the shadow might be killed by the enemies inside once it gets inside.

Less than three minutes after the group of shadows went in, the lich's shadow emerged from the portal.

"Master, it should be in the main hall of a building, surrounded by numerous passageways and intersections."

When we went in, we fought with the enemies in the hall.

However, they were all low-level slimes and some puppet monsters.

After clearing out these monsters, we continued exploring for a while, but apart from finding some low-level monsters, we didn't find anything unusual.

"Are there only low-level monsters?"

Upon hearing that there was no danger inside, Anno prepared to go in and check it out himself.

Judging from the consumption of magic crystals, the portal should last for another half hour.

Anno put on the Dragon Scorpion armor, left Ella outside, and then led everyone inside.

As Anno stepped through the portal, he felt a dizziness and found himself in a pitch-black hall.

However, Anno possesses Night Vision, so he is completely unaffected here.

Looking back at the vortex-shaped portal behind him, Anno focused his attention on his surroundings.

The empty hall is over a thousand square meters in size.

The air was thick with the smell of mildew, and there were cracks in the supporting pillars and walls of the hall. An unknown plant was also growing on the walls.

At this moment, in addition to the summoned creature shadows that had entered earlier, there were also some monster corpses here.

As soon as Anno entered, the souls of these dead monsters burrowed into his body.

Just as Shadow reported earlier, they were all low-tier monsters.

There are probably a dozen or so.

In addition, there were some animal bones on the ground.

There are eight passageways around the hall, and a shadow guards each passageway.

"Go scout ahead, but keep a low profile!"

Anno waved his hand, summoning all the smaller summons one by one, and had them collectively summon shadows to begin exploring the eight passages.

Then Anno looked at the lich beside him and asked, "Do you know the origin of the dungeon?"

The lich pondered for a moment and then said, "Master, most of the dungeons were built by some underground race. These races dislike sunlight, so they built their cities underground."

Another type is an underground military fortress or a stronghold of a certain force.

The last type is an underground laboratory for a certain organism.

Building dungeons is not an easy task for an individual.

If it's the third possibility, then the owner of this dungeon must be extremely powerful.

Furthermore, individuals building dungeons must have some purpose in mind; otherwise, they wouldn't spend so much time and money.

After looking around, the lich said, "I don't know which type of dungeon we're in now, but it looks like it's abandoned!"

If this underground city still had an owner, then Anno would have been discovered long ago when he and his men broke in.

"Antoine buys nearly a thousand slaves every month and sends them here, and this is certainly not an isolated incident."

Even if all these slaves were killed, it's impossible for these low-ranking slimes to consume them all. There must be other secrets hidden deeper within.

As soon as Anno finished speaking, Buck returned to the hall from the east passage and said to Anno, "Master, we found signs of activity in the room next to the passage!"