During Eleanor's next visit, I wasn't able to bring my Meditation skill to a higher level, but it was close. A few times, I tried to practice my combat skill, but without an enemy to target, its progress was very limited.

I had ceased my attempt to devour mana and instead grabbed the paper in front of me, making a show of taking notes.

[Mana Blacksmith - Level 32]

[Health 960/960] [Mana 0/160]

[Vitality 64 / Strength 64 / Dexterity 48 / Essence 16]

[Skills (4/10)

Mana Repair (Rare) - 62 [Advanced Inspect]

Mana Forge (Rare) - 59 [Creative Forging, Mana Manipulation]

Meditation (Common) - 42 [Controlled Flow, Enhanced Sensing]

Hammer of Might (Uncommon) - 53]

I had to admit, I was fascinated by the development I had made. The only thing that lagged behind was my level, which would have to stay where it was until Maria returned to accompany me for another trip.

Eleanor returned, pulling another huge cart, but looked shocked when she looked at the pile in front of me. "You have already used more than half?" she asked.

"Well, yes," I replied. "I told you, experimentation can be expensive. Besides, does it matter? I thought all of them were useless."

"That might be so, but they are not unlimited. We barely have two more deliveries like this, and we run out of that stock," she said.

"We can always break intact ones," I said.

She looked unhappy about that. "We can't waste our only source of income, not when we're already running in the red," she said, cutting sharply. "You have already wasted enough. Any more, and you'll have to hunt them yourself."

I was about to reveal some kind of partial success, when I stopped. "Wait, is that an option?" I said.

"Normally, I would have said no, as you don't have the Dexterity required to stay out of their path but…"

"I don't need to hit their weak points. I don't need the shells to be intact," I completed.

She nodded. "Actually, that might work. You still have the ring of camouflage, right?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Good, you can use that to leave the camp with me. And, once we get there, you can disguise as a guild member here to check the dungeon, thinking of joining the camp. That way, we can excuse the broken shells as some kind of sample your guild requires. There are several spots that you can use alone easily, especially with your Hammer of Might. It's not a permanent solution, but we're already operating under the dungeon's limit until Lady Maria returns with the new recruits, so there's no waste."

"Excellent. That way, I can also observe those monsters destroying the weapons. It might give me a better direction about my experiments."

"Nice point," she said. "Unfortunately, even the safe spots are relatively dangerous. You need to increase your hammer proficiency further before you can move alone."

"It's already at twenty-seven, is that enough?" I asked. It was half of the real number, but even that was an absurd number.

A good choice, as her surprise was apparent, but not the point of shock. "Already," she said. "I underestimated you. Let's give you a new set of armor, pick a couple extra hammers, and we can move," she said.

"Do they destroy the blunt weapons as well?" I asked.

"Not at the same rate. The lack of an edge makes them last longer, but eventually, they get destroyed as well. Still, four hammers should be enough to take down about forty, which should be what you can take down and bring in."

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"Excellent. I just need to bring a few ingots so I can repair my weapons," I said as I followed her.

"Can you do that without a forge?" she asked.

"Yes, but it'll be slower," I said, which was a bit of misrepresentation. Technically, there was a way I could do so, but it would be pointlessly inefficient. I wanted to bring them because I wanted to see if I could use mana forging as a cold forging method. "By the way, do you have a sword skill I can use?" I added. "Something that focuses on defense. I love my hammer, but I don't think it's a good weapon to use against an assassin."

"Hmm, you receive one point to your Dexterity, right," she said. I nodded. "I have an uncommon skill called Stalwart Guard that focuses more on shield than a sword. We purchased several during the initial tests, but it didn't work as well as we had hoped against the insect monsters."

"Exactly what I need," I replied as I followed her to the armory once more. She pulled that skill stone from a dusty shelf, showing it wasn't touched for a long time.

[Skill Stone: Stalwart Guard (Uncommon)]

I immediately absorbed it, ignoring the pain and discomfort. While having two melee skills was a waste for most warriors, production classes received too many skill slots to care about that. Having a new style that could help me defend against another potential assassin was worth using a slot.

Especially since improving it would take much less with my mana trick.

Once the pain of absorbing an external skill faded, I tested it a bit. One of the gladius-style short swords I had spent most of my time repairing worked wonderfully with it, but only when I had a shield ready.

"Not bad," I muttered. Paired with a large shield, it could be used against someone with a larger armor. Once that was done, I slipped the ring back to my finger, activating the spell effect. Once that was done, I followed Eleanor to the griffin, and sat behind her.

She said nothing at first. I grabbed the saddle desperately, wishing for a distraction. But, since I was supposed to not be there, I couldn't say anything. The vertigo was even worse while watching my skin change color constantly.

Apparently, the camouflage spell didn't count the back of a griffin as moving. A weird, arbitrary rule, but at this point, I was used to them.

"You can remove the ring," she said.

"Finally," I groaned as I put it in my pocket.

"You're getting more used to flying," she said.

"Y-yeah," I answered, which was all I wanted to say about the subject. "Why don't you tell me about the dungeon?" I said. While it was important, I was even more desperate for a distraction.

"Sure. You have been in a dungeon, right?"

"A few times, but merely for observation," I said, which was true. Dungeons were truly fantastical. Self-sustaining closed spaces that didn't correspond to their physical surroundings, constantly generating monsters that were capable of dropping items once killed like a video game.

Unfortunately, they were as fascinating as a venomous snake. They appeared without a distinct pattern. Some of them were easy to handle, and turned into a source of economic prosperity. The others were too dangerous to handle, requiring a dedicated force of experts to delve into the depths and destroy it.

And, some of them just went undiscovered, growing more and more until they exploded, spewing an army of monsters.

I had visited a few of them with hired escorts — when I was reasonably wealthy — to see what had been going on, but once I realized I lacked the tools to even start penetrating their mystery, I lost my interest.

The stars were fascinating as well, but I didn't continuously look at the sky and hoped to figure out how a main sequence star worked.

"Really? Most people prefer to level up in the dungeons. It's certainly more efficient, and drops help."

Another fun detail. Only in dungeons, did monsters drop items. Outside, they just killed and died.

"No. I didn't fight most of the time," I said. "It's rather new."

"Nothing to be ashamed of. It makes your improvement even more impressive," she said. "Now, the first thing you need to be careful of is that dungeons always have a mist that blocks the view. It depends on the type, but even the best one is merely more than three hundred yards. Our dungeon has a fifty yard range. Not exactly horrible, but enough to remove the probability of ranged combat. We have some flare scrolls for emergencies, but you need to angle them correctly for the people to notice."

"Understood," I said.

"The monsters inside are not exactly fast, but they can turn and twitch surprisingly quickly, which makes hitting their weak spots a challenge. Also, be careful about their mandibles. They can cut through armor. And, once you kill them, you have less than a minute before their shell melts, which can be difficult solo."

"Not for me. I can just rip a large piece," I said. "How about the drops?"

"Nothing much. Their drops are pretty rare in the first place. Mostly some basic skills, a couple common ones, and a few spell schemas. Nothing that goes for more than a few silver, basically negligible with the current scale."

"What about the crystals and the herbs?"

"Those grow on the dungeon walls, and the System Shop buys them. Some of them can even go for a gold or two."

"I'm guessing they are rare, or they would be the main source of income," I said.

"Yes. They grow on their own, and require constant exploration. Other than them, there's not much vegetation in this dungeon. It's more like a lifeless desert of stone, interrupted only by some shrubbery."

"Sound drab," I said.

"I prefer drab over complicated every day. Once, I fought in a jungle dungeon. Trees everywhere, hiding venomous monsters behind. It was pretty much hell."

I shuddered. She was right. Lifeless desert sounded much better than a jungle.

"Luckily, it's merely stuck in a constant twilight rather than darkness, so we don't have to deal with torches. Now, about the movement of the monsters. The first thing you need to pay attention to is…"

Most of the points she mentioned were obvious, but I still listened to them with rapt attention.

It was much better than focusing on my current mode of transportation.