Before Hazel could proceed with her second Dungeon Challenge, the first thing she needed to deal with was her books. Now that she chose the books she wanted to take with her on her dungeon journey, the novice mage brought them back to the Tavern she was staying at.

Entering the building, she climbed up the stairs and made her way to her room. Getting inside, she scanned her sleeping quarters and searched for a spot to put her books before immediately placing them on the bed.

“I’ll figure out what to do with them while I’m still in this Town,” She decided. “Right now, I have something else to take care of.”

Hazel now had two objectives at the moment. The first one was gaining more levels, and the second was completing the Dungeon Challenge. She believed that by completing both, she would obtain more Stat Points that would help in making her stronger.

She did have a third objective which was using this time to train her skills and spells. So far, Hazel had been fighting rather recklessly. The Fractured Classes and the Fractured Cyclops were both prime examples.

In both cases, she only maintained her distance for a little bit before nearly getting killed by the Fractured. The Cyclops was even worse since it nearly crushed her. If her Endurance stat wasn’t high enough, that monster would’ve popped her like a balloon. A very wet, viscous balloon…

Hazel shuddered at the thought of her exploding into a shower of blood and viscera. Yeah, Endurance was a very valuable stat to Hazel. It prevented her from dying in a lot of her battles.

However, she also needed to prioritize her Intelligence and Wisdom, since they were the true source of her potential as a Mage. And she needed to invest her points in them as soon as she gained them.

Hazel was currently level seven after defeating the Fractured Cyclops. Hopefully, by the time she was done cleaning the Town, she would be at least level ten. Emphasis on “hopefully”.

While worrying about this, Hazel pulled out the loot box she earned after completing her first dungeon challenge. Reaching inside, she whipped out some more jerky and a water bottle.

She chomped and chewed on a piece of jerky while occasionally taking a couple of sips of water, replenishing her energy in preparation for her new mission. Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about running out of food since she would gain another loot box from her second challenge.

However, Hazel had no clue regarding what was inside the box, so she kept in mind to not devour all of her rations in case the second loot box didn’t contain any food. Regarding the loot box, the next one she would get after completing the second challenge appeared to be an Uncommon Loot Box.

That was one tier higher than Common. And this caused Hazel to ponder over what the Rarity ranking was, like what came after Uncommon? Would it be Rare or something akin to that?

Hazel wanted to know, but that was a later issue. Plus, if and when she received more challenges, she would figure it out sooner or later.

Putting that thought aside for now, Hazel quickly finished her meal, if she could call it that. Putting her box back, she then left her room before exiting the Tavern building altogether.

Once outside, Hazel trained her ears, intently searching for the familiar sounds of groaning and growling. She then caught the sound as she whirled her head over to the left. That was when she saw a lone Fractured Human standing around the corner of a building.

Spotting her first prey, Hazel stalked over to the zombie-like monster, carefully approaching to avoid alerting it. Getting a little closer, Hazel readied her staff to fire a spell before she paused. Her eyes trailed down onto the gnarled wood as her eyebrow arched.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her staff allowed her to channel her magic when casting a spell a lot more proficiently. So, now she could finally find out…what would happen if she cast a spell without using it?

A sly smile appeared on her face. Looking eager, she placed the staff on the ground. If she had a sheath or something to strap it on, she would’ve done that, but that sadly wasn’t happening.

Once her hands were free, Hazel raised one of them at the Fractured Human. With her palm directed at her enemy, Hazel attempted to cast a Mana Bolt. As she concentrated, a surge of energy swelled up within her.

However, something felt different. The process of the energy surge…felt slow. It wasn’t going at a snail’s pace, but Hazel could tell that there was a difference in casting time.

Moments later, a rod of pure mana materialized before her hand. And without hesitation, Hazel fired the spell toward the Fractured Human. The spell barreled toward the target before tearing through its torso, making a skull-sized hole in the process.

The Fractured Human’s body began to rapidly crack before suddenly bursting into purple fragments. Hazel glanced at the fluorescent purple lights before looking down at her hand. She closed and opened it a couple of times with a curious gaze.

“Well, that explains that…” Hazel noted.

There certainly was a difference between using spells with a staff and without it. And that appeared to be time. When Hazel conjured the mana bolt, there was a considerable amount of time needed to cast it compared to when she used her magic staff.

However, a part of Hazel felt that this was because it was her first time attempting this. Maybe if she tried again, things would be different.

Thankfully, Hazel managed to find more test subjects when she noticed a large horde of Fractured humans emerge from around the corner. All of them began to shamble over to Hazel, desperate to try and kill her.

Seeing this, the corner of Hazel’s lips curled up into a sly smile.

“Well, at least I get some more target practice with this!”

Grabbing her staff with one hand, Hazel instead used the other and attempted to cast another Mana Bolt. Much like before, she felt a surge of power and energy course through her, but the casting time was still lagging a bit before a rod of mana was finally created.

The Mana Bolt was sent flying into one of the Fractured Humans, putting a hole in their chest. The Bolt maintained its course and then pierced through several Fractured monsters before finally dissipating into particles of blue light.

The Fractured Humans that were hit remained still for a brief moment just as their bodies burst into purple particles. The other Fractured was unbothered by this and kept shambling over to Hazel with intent to kill.

“Alright, let’s try out the other spells…” Hazel said eagerly, raising her hand once more.

Instead of a Mana Bolt, she instead conjured a Baneful Sickle. She figured that the result of the casting would be different compared to her previous spell, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t. Hazel was simply met with the same outcome as before.

A surge of energy before a slight lag affected her casting time. Then, her Baneful Sickle was finally created and was hurled into the horde. The malicious purple sickle made contact with the monsters and severed them in two.

Before their halves could even hit the floor, the Fractured Humans shattered to pieces and dispersed in the air.

Hazel was briefly distracted by the light show; her eyes gazing up at the purple lights floating around. It was the loud groans of the remaining Fractured humans that pulled her attention back to them.

“It seems that the only thing affected at the moment was the casting time,” Hazel muttered to herself. “In terms of power, I can’t tell the difference.”

From what Hazel remembered from the book, Magic staves not only helped channel mana to cast spells faster and better, but they also strengthened the spells and helped increase a Mage’s mana regeneration.

From what Hazel saw, her spells weren’t weakened all that much without her staff. Then again, her current opponents were Fractured Humans. Not only were they incredibly slow, but their durability was even worse than Hazel’s. She remembered simply bashing her staff against one of their heads and they went down without a fuss.

Hazel deeply sighed. “I’m going to need stronger enemies if I want to figure out all the variables of me casting magic without my staff.”

Putting her experimentation on hold, Hazel raised her staff and directed it at the Fractured Humans with a cold expression.

“Sorry, but I’ve lost interest in playing with you guys now,” She said with an icy tone, with barely any emotions behind her words. “Goodbye.”

Upon saying this, the last thing that the remaining Fractured humans saw was a series of Mana Bolts being hurled at them at a frightening speed.