After killing another three hundred monsters — half with their shells ripped, half left intact — I had received three rewards, with ascending importance. I had collected six skill stones. I had reached level thirty-five.

And, I gathered enough data to reinforce the idea that the intact monsters had a higher likelihood of dropping a skill stone. I received two stones from the first group, and four from the second. It could still be a coincidence, but the numbers were still reliable.

At the same time, I noticed that whenever a skill stone appeared, the glow had been slightly brighter. "Let's try something else," I muttered even as I found another small group. This time, when I killed them, I made sure to pile their corpses together.

I expected them to disappear in sequence, but ten of them had disappeared at the same time, leaving a skill stone behind. "I wonder if that's a coincidence."

It turned out that, it was not. Whenever I piled at least ten monsters together, there was always at least one skill stone. Even better, they were not exclusively basic, and there had been some common mixed, but the results were tempting. I wanted to try increasing the number, but there was a limit to the number I could pile alone.

The moment the first one reached the time limit, they all disappeared together.

For that, I needed to go deeper.

"I'm probably trying to discover something that's already known," I pondered even as I moved farther away, not even bothering to bring back the shells I collected. Instead, I just demolished them to replenish my mana as an insurance.

With an uncommon skill maximized, I wasn't afraid of the risks of the first floor, but that was not an excuse to be careless.

This time, I didn't stop until I found an even bigger swarm. The mist prevented me from counting the full numbers, but their distribution pattern suggested that there were at least five hundred of them. "At least another level," I muttered, but I didn't attack them directly. Instead, I searched for a nice, defensible spot with a solid rock behind me.

There were two reasons for it. Fighting without worrying about attacks from behind was more fitting to my style. And, with the monsters attacking en masse, I didn't need to waste any effort piling them together.

Once that was done, I went to attack the first one. The swarm reacted as one, chasing me to the spot I had picked. What followed was a man against a thousand monsters, a daring and incredible fight … or, at least, it should have been.

Instead, it was no different than repairing a hundred swords at once. Interesting trick, but once it was discovered, the process was almost routine. Mostly, I dealt with them using the standard Mana Blow trick, and whenever the numbers turned tricky, I relied fully on skills, Shattering Blow easily solving the trouble.

I just needed to let out a point of mana to prevent the backlash from damaging my hammer.

In the end, I killed almost a thousand monsters, yet gained merely one level, showing that I was already reaching the limits in terms of gaining a level. I doubted that I would be able to gain even one more level today.

However, I didn't care about that, and collected the skill stones. I had another fifteen skill stones in hand. Most of it, I wasn't able to properly read. But what I had received from the largest pile I had managed to gather — thirty-eight insects — had already reinforced my assumption.

[Skill Stone: Nurture (Uncommon)]

I wondered if there were any uncommon skills in the mix. Too bad I wasn't able to read most of them. I decided to keep them separate and ask Maria later. Better safe than sorry.

However, the Nurture skill, I absorbed. I had no reason not to. Unlike common skills, I already knew that uncommon ones could grant a perk, and as long as I act creatively, I should be able to raise it to its limit and get a Perk.

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[Nurture (Uncommon) - 1]

And, while having a combat perk was convenient, it didn't fascinate me as much as getting another trick that relied on production skills. The synergy possibilities were incredible.

Assuming, of course, I could make it work.

Curious about how it would go, I moved to one of the rare half-dead thorny plants, and put my hand on it. I felt a familiar energy move inside me, and went through my finger. It was a subtle feeling, one that I would have missed if I hadn't been playing around with my Vitality for the last three years.

To my shame, I was not making any progress. The best trick I had been able to discover was to imbue my blood with Health, which only came useful due to sheer coincidence. I never even thought about acquiring a Nurture skill to test.

Mostly because, up until I had combined Forge and Repair, I hadn't even thought about using skills to improve each other.

Sometimes, all it took was a new look to a paradigm shift to open a completely new path.

As I used Nurture, I could feel my Health moving in a smoothness I could never replicate even as it departed my finger and disappeared into the plant. I repeated multiple times, wasting some of my Health, all without getting any feedback other than the leaves getting greener.

[-92 Health]

"That's enough experimentation," I said even as I left the plant behind. I wasn't annoyed with my lack of success, as it was only the first impression. It wasn't even a proper failure. The talk I had given Eleanor was not just for show.

I was used to tangling with a complicated problem for months without getting a result, persisting. "Looking back, it was the mistake that led me stuck in that dead end job for three years, ignoring the obvious," I pondered. I was so used to succeeding when I had put my mind into it, I didn't even bother working for the alternative path even as I decided to join the budding research organizations.

Though, I wondered what my old therapist would say. Maybe something about unhealthy focus on achievements, or something about seeking comfort in familiarity in face of disaster.

"Maybe one day, I'll learn," I muttered, wondering if she was alive. A thought that I abandoned once I started killing monsters once again, but with a twist.

This time, I focused on using the sword. Technically, it was a good piece of equipment, because it stunted my performance significantly. In three hours, I could kill at least three thousand with the hammer, maybe more if I was lucky and find a larger swarm, which would give me not only enough materials to keep going for a long time, but also help me gain at least another level or two, even with the rapidly lessening effect of the weaker monsters.

However, it wasn't worth the suspicion it would generate. I couldn't show an incredible improvement in both techniques during the same day. Showing off my sword skill was not the safer option, but there were certain advantages.

Like asking her some questions on how to use a sword. Even if she didn't have the ability to use mana, she still had at least a Rare skill. Any insight she provided might help me improve my second skill even further.

Also, I had to admit, trying to come up with new ways to deal with the giant insects was more fun than I had expected. I was getting more and more used to weaponizing my shield, and I had the advantage in pure strength as long as I didn't just try to tank their charge.

A few shield bashes put them in an unbalanced state, slowing their attack, giving me the chance to deliver a killing blow.

The only problem with the style was the weapon degradation. It damaged them far more than the method the others had been using. Considering the price and rarity of the ingots that were used for repairs, I would have been operating at a loss even without factoring in the taxes and various expenses.

However, not caring about making ends meet was truly a luxury. I just repaired them directly while using ingots. I didn't even need to start a fire, just used mana directly to merge the alloy ingots with the shield and the sword.

Raising Mana Repair over sixty had opened up a lot of new opportunities. Of course, I still pulled several bushes and set a small fire, just enough to mislead Eleanor.

I could have repaired them even without using the material I brought along, but that would have required a real fire, intense enough to soften the metal so I could infuse it with mana once again, which was not exactly easy to set up.

A smirk appeared on my face as I imagined myself in the dungeon, with a huge forge setup, swatting monsters and repairing weapons. A nice dream, but a little bit too noticeable for my taste.

I continued killing monsters while practicing the skill, but I only managed to gain four more points, showing that I had already depleted the benefits from my other combat skill. So, halfway, I changed focus and started trying to figure out how to use mana attacks.

Though, once I depleted my mana, I stopped. Eleanor might return early, and I didn't want to get caught playing with Mana. I still didn't know if she could use — or at least sense — mana, but until I was sure, I would go around with empty mana reserves.

I didn't have any success, but toward the end, I managed to time it perfectly to at least protect the sword. It was probably useless, as anyone that could use mana would have been targeting more profitable dungeons. While this dungeon had been a source of fortune for me, ultimately, it wasn't really anything worthwhile in the grand scale.

Or, they wouldn't have used it as a tool for a bet.