“I think we hit the limit,” Maria said once we spent fifteen minutes uninterrupted by any boss monster despite the size of the forest.

“Looks like it,” I responded. “Still, we must have killed almost fifty of them. Is that normal?”

“For a dungeon that has been left unattended as much as this one, certainly,” she said. “Every dungeon has its own limitations, but most spawn a new boss monster between a day and a week. To my knowledge, exceptions are rare, to both extremes.”

“I see,” I said. “Maybe you should have taken more of them.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Nonsense. Ten of them are more than what I need, which should give me all the advantages I need even for an emergency. Ultimately, you will spend the majority of your time in the dungeon, so it makes strategic sense,” she said.

I nodded in appreciation. The thought process was certainly reasonable. “Still, fifty dungeon bosses in less than two hours. It has been a productive session,” I said.

“What’s next?” she asked.

“I still need to forge a few practice swords for Eleanor,” I said. “Do you mind helping me?”

“How? I don’t have the skill,” she said.

“Well, the last time you helped me, I managed to unlock a new skill, so I’m sure it won’t hurt,” I said, which was true. I already had several ideas, and even if all of them failed, she could still help me with the calculations.

“Good. I’m sure Eleanor can keep things going for a while,” she said.

“I’m sure she can, too. Whether she would enjoy it is a completely different issue,” I responded, which earned a chuckle.

“We all make sacrifices,” she said, smiling wide. We played only one game of chess until we arrived at my private workshop, which was close to the dungeon gate.

“Wow, better than I expected,” she said once I gave a tour of the place. “Though, all those tubes…”

“Proper experimentation takes time,” I said. “But, it did help me make a few interesting discoveries, like the fact that not all mana-dead locations actually lack mana. It just drops below our ability to detect.”

That made Maria cross her eyebrows. “No, that’s not true … is it?”

“To be fair, I didn’t do any experiment to collaborate the results, so it might be wrong, but the observation is solid,” I said.

“But Essence allows us to detect mana,” she said.

“Think of it like hearing. Just because you can hear doesn’t mean you will hear someone whispering at the other end of a corridor.”

Maria paused, looking unconvinced. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

“Let me explain the process, then,” I said, which turned into a lecture on Newton’s Law of Cooling. Luckily, I didn’t throw the tubes I had experimented away, meaning there were hundreds of samples to test the theory, so once I finished explaining the core principles, I let her do the experiment alone while I tended the various chores like cleaning the blast furnaces, refilling the feeders, chopping wood.

Once I completed all, Maria was still working with the tubes, her frown even deeper. I didn’t interrupt her. While I was sure I could convince her of my conclusion if I insisted enough, letting her see it on her own was a better way.

Not to mention, it was always a good habit to let one’s peers repeat the experiments. The history of science was filled with people who thought that they had made a groundbreaking discovery, only for someone else to point out a systemic mistake in their experiment setup.

And, while she was busy with that, I focused on creating the casts for the other mass-production items. For weapons, I decided to focus on spears, as it was simple enough to be used even without a skill, especially when against monsters that loved to charge in a straight line. Also, a shorter handle would turn them into throwing weapons, which was an adjustment they could make as needed.

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The armor was a bit more problematic. I thought about making breastplates, but it would consume too much metal, and adjusting it would be troubling as well.

Instead, I decided to create metal strips that they could add to their clothes as they wished. Not the ideal protection, but it had the flexibility advantage. I had already produced hundreds of spearheads by the time Maria returned.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

That confused me. “What?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, louder.

“No, I heard you. I just don’t understand why,” I responded.

“Are you going to make me say it?” she said, looking a bit put out. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Only then, it clicked. “I see,” I said. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” I explained, but she didn’t seem to be convinced. I stopped what I was doing, and looked at her. “No, I’m being serious,” I said. “What I had was an observation based on only one experiment. The model makes sense, but it doesn’t mean that my conclusion was true. It’s always good for someone else to run the same experiment.”

“Really?” she said, perking up a little.

“Yes. That’s how we progress,” I said.

“And what if you had been wrong. Would you still have been happy?”

“Depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“Whether it was a silly mistake on my part, or I missed something fundamental. The former is never fun, but it certainly wouldn’t have been your fault. The latter could be even more interesting depending on what that fundamental detail would have been, and whether it could result in a more interesting conclusion.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have made some of my important discoveries on the back of such mistakes. The key is to keep an open mind. Science is not about being right, but discovering the truth.”

“That sounds … interesting.”

I smiled. “I have to admit, it can be boring, or humbling, but ultimately, it’s a rewarding process. I would have done better if I hadn’t lost that approach after the Cataclysm.” A sigh escaped my mouth. “But, that’s enough talking. Let’s start working on Eleanor’s sword. I don’t want to explain to her that we have forgotten it.”

“Good point. She can be a bit touchy when it comes to her toys,” Maria chuckled. “What do you need?”

“The first thing I wanted to see is if you could copy the denser mana of anEpic skill,” I said.

“Show me,” she said. I did. “Again,” she asked, which turned into several repeats, occasionally interrupted by the refillment of my reserves. “You need something to expand your reserves,” she commented. “Too bad we don’t have the resources for it.”

“It’s not critical,” I said, which was partially true. Expanding my reserves by a certain percentage wasn’t critical, but I would love to have one such item and examine it, trying to figure out how it worked. I showed the mana blast again. “Do you think you can repeat it?”

“Maybe,” she said as she closed her eyes, which started another chain of attempts. “How about this?” she asked once it looked similar enough.

“I don’t know. Do you mind channeling it through a piece of metal so I can use Observe on it,” I said. She did, and I realized we were on the right path. “It’s good. Far better than I had expected,” I said. “The last time we practiced, you were having trouble pushing your mana out without the control of a skill.”

“Once I did that, I realized it was a good way to challenge Meditation, so I ran it repeatedly,” she said. “Though, I didn’t almost kill myself in the process,” she added, admonishing me.

“Yeah, looking back, it wasn’t my best moment,” I admitted. “Still, I can see that the practice is helping you,” I said. “Do you mind changing the flow like …” I said, only to pause before I grabbed some clay and turned it into a tablet, and wrote a mathematical line.

It was a long, complicated formula, but even before I could start to explain it, her eyes brightened. “I see,” she said as she repeated the mana burst.

I knew that she wasn’t trying to fake understanding, as her corrections turned the flow far too similar to mine. And, the differences were resolved after a few practice sessions. The only problem was that it stabilized faster than I had expected once she stopped controlling it, making it harder for me to take over through Mana Control.

“We need to get the process right,” I said. “I need to capture it before it gets destabilized. Maybe if we can add a temporary layer outside, kind of like a string around a bundle of sticks, keeping them together.”

“How?” she asked.

“How about this?” I asked, writing a line of formula.

“No, that won’t work. It doesn’t fit well with most of the data,” she said. “How about this?” she replied, writing one of her own, which, unlike mine, included the calculations jotted down underneath as well. I nodded in appreciation, as I couldn’t calculate the results with a glance.

“Looks more promising,” I said. A few more tries, and we managed to create a variant of the same mana flow, which stayed stable for a fraction of a second once she ceased her control. It was still a tight window, but luckily, timing was something that could be perfected with enough practice, especially since Maria was kind enough to help me without getting bored.

An hour later, we were looking at a small, completed dagger … well, Maria was looking at it.

I was more distracted by the notification I had just received.

[Mana Forge (Epic) 107 -> 108]

“Good news, it also gave me a skill point,” I said.

“Excellent,” Maria said. “Now, to our task.”

“With pleasure,” I said. With her help, I didn’t need to limit myself to only one sword. I could forge multiple ones, which would not only help Eleanor get a hang of it fast, but also it would give me some skill points.

A perfect mutual victory.