The meeting with Zolast took another full hour to finish, going through exactly what I needed from Zolast for our meeting with the mister Junior Inquisitor, with several repeats to make sure he could act just as I needed.

I had no idea just how strong the Junior Inquisitor Bertnam was, but I had a feeling that, discounting a transformed Toross, he would be the most dangerous opponent I was going to meet, and some extra preparation was not unwelcome.

Only after I made sure Zolast could act as I wanted, we moved onto the next topic.

Particularly what else I could bring to hasten the opening of the dungeon. While I was still scared of going into a dungeon — even if restricted, going into a domain of a god while they seemed willing to trigger a world war for me didn't seem like a smart idea — I still wanted it operating so Jertann and the others start leveling up quickly once more.

Without my tricks, their leveling efforts were getting slower, not helped by the near-exponential growth of the level requirements. Even monopolizing the large beasts that attacked the hunting boost started to lose its effectiveness as they continued to level up.

And, I needed them to get even faster. Worse, it was not because of the sudden appearance of Bertnam. No, if that was the only problem, I had many ways to deal with him, some clean, others bloody, but all with a certain sense of finality.

The real problem was what his presence implied.

My disappearance in the forest was slowly becoming common knowledge, and as it turned that, more and more people would start searching for me. It was good that the search was still focused on the forest, but as time passed, it was inevitable that someone would decide that I had managed to slip past the barricade and start searching the plains for my presence.

I was tempted to try and slip using the boats … but that would also mean abandoning everything I had built, and the chance to improve further.

I was much more confident in successfully defending — or escaping if absolutely necessary — if I could finally push to level sixty.

And, to do that, I needed a source of mana stones, the kind that I could trigger renewably. Hence opening the dungeon as soon as possible.

"And that's all you need," I said, looking at the long list of materials Zolast had just compiled.

"Yes, the ones at the top are necessary material, but the young duke also promised to supply them. He's just having some trouble with the delivery. I will need just a day or two once I receive those materials."

"How surprising," I muttered. "And those below the line. It's three times longer."

"Well, those are some nice-to-have materials, ones that our young noble wouldn't provide," Zolast said, and I noticed his smirk, an unusual one, like he was pulling a small prank. "They are not necessary, but you might want to be interested in giving those."

"How nice of you, giving me the option," I said with a deadpan expression.

Zolast shrugged innocently. "Well, I thought that you might appreciate a secret entrance to the dungeon, but if you don't think it's useful…"

"Explain!"

"The magical explanation is quite long and mostly unnecessary, so I won't bore you with it. But the breach has a broken mana tendril stretching away, and let's just say that it's possible to create a pocket dungeon using it. It would almost be like a parasite dungeon, pulling strength from it …"

I nodded, far more aware of the implications of such secret access. "Is it possible to add that after the dungeon starts operating?" I said, and luckily, Zolast nodded.

"Excellent," I said, ready to leave for another road trip, but just before leaving, I remembered one last thing, and reached for the box. "I have some skills and a stat for you to assess," I said.

I watched as he went through them one by one, his eyes closed even as a blue glow appeared on his fingers, assessing each rock carefully, clearly relying far more upon than barebones notifications the System generated.

"The skills are decent, but nothing exceptional," Zolast murmured after examining them for some time. "They are almost complete, little to no damage, though Advanced skills are a bit of a letdown."

"Why?"

"Depending on the completeness, some advanced skills allow the delivery of mana-enhanced attacks, but the ones you have missing aspects make it much harder," Zolast explained.

"Is it really that important to have mana attacks, it's not like we can supply mana stones to each defender. It's much more effective to forge weapons from them."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"You're forgetting a very important detail," Zolast said. "The dungeons always have mana saturating the air, so the ability to use at least one mana attack is vital for success in the dungeon."

"Ah, you're right," I said, acting like I had forgotten that little detail rather than it being news to me. "But that means you need to teach me how to assess the skill stones so that I could purchase the correct ones," I said.

"I don't think I can. Just because you can use mana doesn't mean you can replicate it. There's no skill to hasten it. You need to be able to use your mana freely, and it requires experience. It's not just something—" Zolast started, only to fall silent when I let mana appear on my fingers, dancing smoothly between them. "Of course, you can do that," Zolast said, exasperated. "Why am I even surprised?"

"Less talking, and more teaching," I said.

"Alright," Zolast said. "The first thing you need to do is to be patient," he said, and reached for a piece of paper, drawing a very complicated drawing, made of thousands of lines of differing shapes and thicknesses. One that hurt my eyes to look even look at. "That's a simplified structural diagram of a skill stone," he explained.

"Oh, yeah, very simple," I answered even as I used my Memory to commit it to the depths of my head, but even with my stat helping, it was impossible. It was like trying to memorize a language that I didn't know the basics, only a general impression remained.

"I don't expect you to understand it, but just hold the general shape in mind," he said. "Of course, each skill has its own structure, so, to properly assess them, you need to study hundreds of different base structures, each with its own variants."

"Since you bothered to even start, I'm guessing you have a shortcut," I said, not willing to bite his intimidating teacher routine.

"You're no fun," he said. "Since you're going to focus on learning how to assess just one specific skill from one dungeon, your work is relatively easier."

This time, he put his hand on one of the advanced skills, and sketched another outline, this time just made of hundreds of lines, focusing just on the outline. Then, he repeated the same drawing focusing on the other advanced skill.

Then, he put both drawings next to each other. "They are identical except those points," I commented as I pointed to several areas, ones that looked damaged.

"Exactly. That's the simplest way of assessing the quality of the skill. Not exactly foolproof, as the integrity of the internal structure is the thing that ensures the mana aspects are usable, but it should be enough to buy them," Zolast said.

"Is there a way to repair them?" I asked.

"Technically, there is, but not exactly worth the effort for just an advanced skill even if we have the necessary classes and skills. It was not something I could do even before the curse… " he said, letting that linger.

"Understandable," I said. "Any recommendation on how to sense the structure," I said.

"Not as much as you want to," Zolast said. "Just keep your eyes closed and try to sense through your mana. You have already completed the hardest part by freely using your mana. Your purist approach is helping you in that, I'm guessing."

"Exactly," I said, glad that our earlier discussions had already given me an excuse for not knowing much about the various aspects of the skills. "I don't really want to deal with them, but sometimes, circumstances don't allow such luxuries."

Zolast nodded while I let my mana stretch over the skill, my eyes closed as I tried to sense…

And, I felt a rough, featureless sphere under my mana touch, its borders unclear,, as if I was a blind man trying to make sense by touching. I bit my lips, trying to make sense … and quickly, the definition increased. Not good enough to draw the outline Zolast drew., but it shouldn't take more than an hour of practice to reach that.

"Good start," Zolast said. "With the smooth movement of your mana, you show promise. I'm guessing that, with dedicated practice, you can sense the general outline in less than a week."

"Hopefully," I answered, still not willing to reveal the full extent of my abilities. "Now, about the stats."

"Well, that's a more complicated issue. I'm guessing that as a purist, you didn't use any stat stones either," Zolast said.

I nodded.

"Understandable," Zolast said. "But, you know the general drawbacks."

"I know some, but you better give me a summary just in case."

"Unlike skills, stat stones are constantly active, and in a sense, they are alive," Zolast answered. "Unfortunately, their biggest disadvantage is that, despite their active state, they are never as easy to control as the ones that were gained from the System."

"That's the reason we purists don't like them. Control is everything for us," I said.

"Right," Zolast said. "That brings us to their second disadvantage. Just like food made of wild beasts, each stat stone has some amount of foreign imprint to them, one that needs to be cleansed, which makes absorbing them a long and laborious affair, especially before the third promotion."

"I remember hearing that it's a constant strain," I said, using the opportunity to validate some of the gossips I had overheard around the town.

"That's true," Zolast said. "Even after cleansing the accumulated amount, it constantly generates more, infecting the body enough to cause a strain. It doesn't make much of a difference when using just a few…"

"But as the numbers increase, so does the strain," I said. "Which, in turn, impacts the Health regeneration, and total combat function."

"Exactly," Zolast said. "That impacts greatly. Of course, that's only one of the dangers."

"What's the other danger?" I asked.

"That part is not well-known, but the amount of foreign energies impacts the promotion process in a very adversarial manner, particularly the third promotion, impacting the racial promotion process by tainting energies. Unlike abilities, it's much harder to truly identify the source of energy from the Stat stones, even if they are coming from the same dungeon, and it might trigger a mutation. Some people bets on that mutation being helpful and deliberately consumes them early but…"

"It's essentially a low-chance lottery," I guessed, and Zolast nodded. "And people treat us purists as the weird ones," I commented, glad that I had avoided using stat stones.

It seemed more complicated than I had first expected. And, for me, it didn't seem like it was worth the risk.

Especially since I wasn't exactly struggling from a lack of Stat points.

"I'm guessing that you don't need the stat stone?" I said.

"Some Vitality would have been useful, but I don't have a week to waste properly cleansing it. I'm guessing you won't have any trouble acquiring more," he said.

"That won't be a problem," I said with a chuckle, happy with the very productive meeting we had.