While I knew Maria and Eleanor were on the way, I stayed in the dungeon nevertheless, talking with the guards to learn about the various methods that they had used to explore the dungeon. It started as listening to them about the stories, but soon it turned into a Q&A session as they proved very willing to answer my questions, where I started to ask very pointed questions about the tactics they had used to first explore the dungeon and determine its profitability.

At first, I was surprised by the candid way they answered the questions, even with Eleanor leaving me in charge unofficially. At first, I assumed it was my generous tipping that had earned me this privilege, but even that felt a bit excessive.

Then, it clicked. It was my power. More accurately, their perception of my power. From their perspective, I was already at least level hundred — with the gossip split equally on whether I had passed the threshold — and with that power, came respect.

It was just that I underestimated the intensity of it.

It was my mistake considering my job. While equality had always been more of an idealized concept than a true reality, it didn't change the fact that, before the Calamity, all people had been in the same baseline. Yet, even then, people had a tendency to idolize the strong and the famous. It was inevitable.

Ultimately, humans were social beings, and the more complicated the society, the more we relied on heuristic patterns of thought. In the past, the rich, the strong, and the famous had been revered.

Here, a sufficiently high level meant all three. Levels meant power, in a direct, visceral way that was impossible to ignore. Then, with the world economy regressing to a primitive level, power also meant riches. It was a reason that there wasn't anyone above level fifty trying to get into this dungeon. They had better dungeons to make money from.

Dungeons that didn't require them to get away from what passed for civilization.

More importantly, the ones that didn't put them in the middle of a political dispute.

This meant that, other than Eleanor and Maria, I was perceived to be the only high-level person here, and with that, came respect. However, it was one thing to acknowledge it in theory, another thing was to live through it. Even as a professor, I wasn't used to it, though that was mostly due to my age making it difficult for my students to respect me.

Suddenly, I was glad that I didn't have to deal with it for long. Arthur was a fake identity, one that I would abandon as soon as I made enough money. But, that was for the future. I still had too much to learn here.

I continued questioning them, trying to learn the tactics they had used. It seemed that they had already utilized some of the more obvious methods. Spears had worked to kill, but their wooden handles degraded even faster under the corrosive effect.

As for bows, the cost of ammunition made it unsustainable. Special arrowheads were required to penetrate through the thick shells of the monsters, which inevitably ruined the arrow itself, making it more expensive.

I questioned whether they tried to raise some native plants. They confirmed that they tried and abandoned it quickly. Apparently, the native dungeon plants pushing back the dungeon mist was a known trick, but it wasn't well explored, because there were better magical alternatives that could dispel that mist and reestablish better visual clarity.

Alternatives that didn't work in a region that lacked mana — or, as my experiments showed, had a low mana density. And, according to them, the desert nature of the dungeon meant that growing any kind of plant was not worth the effort.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It meant that no one had bothered to experiment with the water from the fourth floor, at least properly. I could have revealed that, but it would have told Eleanor that monopolizing the fourth floor was possible despite the corrosive effect, which would ruin my business model.

Instead, I wanted to try something simpler.

"Lend me your bow. I want to try something," I asked one of the guards. While they didn't use them for hunting insects as it was expensive, some of them were still armed with bows to defend the fort.

Not many of them, which was probably why Thomas' trick had been that devastating.

He passed the bow immediately, but I noticed the hesitance as he passed the arrows. "Just two arrows is enough," I said. "And take ten shells from the latest order. It should be enough, right?" I said. I knew it was overpaying, but it was always better to keep people happy while asking for a favor.

I went back into the dungeon, once again relying on the mist to hide me from the view. But, instead of targeting them directly, I reached into my bag, and pulled a skill stone — one of many I carried with me — which I had been planning to consume.

[Skill Stone: Shoot (Basic)]

"Let's add a ranged attack to the mix," I muttered even as I consumed it. The sensation of absorbing a skill was disorienting as always, but a basic skill was easy to ignore.

[Shoot (Basic) - 1]

The first few times, I used the bow to aim at the rocks, testing the skill. Just like the other basic combat skills, shooting only came with the most basic motion, nothing else. It gave me a general understanding of how to hold, how to pull back, aim, and shoot.

Even with the skill barely at one, I was able to hit a target accurately from ten yards away. Dexterity helped me with aiming, but the greater the distance, the more inaccurate my aim became. Compensating for that inaccuracy was possible, but it slowed the process of aiming even more.

There were several reasons that most people preferred melee over ranged. The first was the logistic challenge. While arrows could be used multiple times, they were still more fragile than weapons. They broke and got lost, and collecting them was a significant chore. Not to mention, it meant it was harder to replenish them during longer expeditions.

Especially since the best arrows came from the System Shops, like everything else.

As a result of all these factors, not only was killing monsters from the range more expensive, but it was also more challenging. Stronger monsters were either armored, which made arrows a very bad — or expensive — method of dealing with them; or they had been agile enough to avoid arrows even after they were shot, making the task of hitting them at a distance impossible.

Sometimes, they had just excess vitality, requiring an absurd amount of arrows to take down.

They were not really useful other than for support — unless someone had a special class — because magic was much more effective as a ranged weapon. Stronger, more accurate, and, most importantly, cheaper.

Well, cheaper anywhere with abundant mana. But, even in mana dead zones, it was probably a close call. Of course, the biggest reason for their relative lack of use was that they required Perception, even for their Common variant, which was not exactly a common stat.

And then, there were even fewer classes that had Perception and Strength at the same time, the second stat necessary to use bows with higher draw weight. Of course, they were still useful in many circumstances, especially near settlements, and more expensive crossbows with certain enchantments removed some of those drawbacks.

When all those facts combined, it explained why they were not as popular as melee while exploring dungeons, even in ones like ours.

"Now, let's improve it," I said. I could have practiced it again and again until I was confident in taking down the beast. Instead, I touched the arrow I had borrowed, and modified its surface with my mana, adding a few hexagons and arrow structure to make it better to hold mana.

Then, I pumped it with mana, treated it as a spear, and shot it to a nearby target. The rock I targeted had been demolished.

[-9 Mana]

[Shoot (Basic) 1 - 25]

One step was enough to maximize the basic skill. "Excellent," I muttered even as I used the other arrow to practice a few more times, getting a better sense of the abilities and limitations of the skill. I quickly made a few simple bows and crossbows, all made purely of metal, reusing the bowstring from the bow I had borrowed.

Of course, those bows were useless garbage. Pure metal was not a good material for making bows. However, since my aim was to understand which weapons triggered the basic skill, it still worked.

And, a smile popped on my face when I noticed crossbows were included on that list. It gave me an idea for an interesting pitch. I broke down the weapons I forged into base metal — mana once again allowing me to bypass very cumbersome steps under automatic control of my skill — and returned to the fort.

Eleanor was waiting for me there.