POV Luana

"Hey, Luana, you're way too focused. Can you hear me, hello?" I suddenly felt someone's hand getting closer. This finally snapped me out of my hyper-focus on this book. I recalled that someone was calling my name. Looking up, I saw Adam. A smile came to my face.

"Hey, Adam, you're back already? I thought you were supposed to come back from your family’s home in a few more days." He smiled back at me. There was no reasonable reason for a smile to be so beautiful, but I was able to focus and listen to what he had to say.

"My mother and father needed to go deal with some things, so there was really no reason to stay longer. Plus, I kind of missed your smile." It was hard, but I was able to keep from blushing. He certainly knew what he was doing. "And of course, I came here to ask you if you have found a party to delve into the second-rank dungeon so you can start taking harder classes." That question made my smile disappear.

I hadn’t known about this requirement. I had hoped and understood that I wouldn’t need to make a lot of friends here. I wanted to finish this academy myself without any distractions, but now that has backfired as I don’t trust anyone enough to join their party. "Some have offered me to join their party, but I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right as I don’t know them at all. I guess I’m a bit too paranoid," I said and gave a weak smile to Adam.

"That's not paranoid, it's completely reasonable. But I’m actually quite glad to hear this as I also need to join a party and delve into the dungeon." Adam’s words surprised me quite a lot. "I thought you had a full ride so you wouldn’t have to take on any missions or delve into the dungeons to get access to all the classes." Adam finally sat down, and I could see that he was quite tense and worried.

"Normally, yes. But my father told me to do it. 'You need to learn how to survive in dangerous situations, so you will go and delve into that second-ranked dungeon and you will start to take more combat missions as well. Is that understood?' Yeah, those were his exact words. So here I am, looking for a party member."

"So then you didn't just miss my smile?" I asked. It was funny the way his face moved like a fish for a little while, but then I laughed lightly, making him let out a heavy sigh. "Of course, I’ll join you. Do you have anyone else for our party?" I asked, to which he quickly nodded.

"Yes, one of my childhood friends, Horus. He's from the physical side of this Academy. He’s an excellent off-tank and a melee damage dealer. I can already see your questions. No, he’s not an asshole noble, but he’s from a prestigious knight family from Verdia."

Adam and I talked a while longer about Horus, but he seemed like an excellent candidate and would fit with our strength levels. We now had a mage, Adam was the healer, and it seems like Horus would be an excellent party leader and a damage dealer. But unfortunately, we didn't have good candidates for the two other spots. The other students that were close to our strength level were already in other parties.

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"It seems that we will have to take a risk and recruit outside the Academy. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone outside our academy that I could invite, so we will have to go to the arena and hopefully find two fighters who could join us," Adam said.

But then an image of someone came to my mind. I wondered if he had reached the second rank. "Adam, I might have someone for the tank position. I will send them a letter, but unfortunately, he's the only one I can think of. So no matter what, we will still have to start scouting the arena to find someone to join us."

We agreed to go to the arena on the weekend. I watched as Adam went off to his class and I headed towards the mail room. Hopefully, Rich will be able to get this letter soon and can join us here. I believe that there is a good chance that he’s second rank and he should be an excellent tank and a damage dealer.

POV Rich

Before I could start with my grinding session to make the blade into the correct shape and sharpness, I noticed a wagon that was led by Roger moving towards my land. It seems that he was back from his trip and while he could be going towards the mountain, I didn’t think so.

Just in case, I started to clean up the smithy to hide what I had been doing. After that I decided to do some farm work and see how my plants were doing. I got so sucked into observing my evolution project plant that Roger actually had to call to me to get my attention.

"Sorry, Roger, I was a bit too focused." He waved my apology off. I walked to him and we both gave each other a proper handshake before Roger began. "I got everything you asked for but I also decided to bring some more bow-making materials." The wagon truly seemed to be full of all kinds of different woods, some horns, and metals as well. There was also a large bundle of fabric. "Everything seems high quality. I’m impressed and truly grateful," I told Roger.

"No need for that. The better the bow material, the more profit we will get. And as for the metals and fabric, the better their quality, the better your chances for survival, which is important to the whole nation." I didn’t know what to say to Roger's words, so I just thanked him sincerely.

We continued to talk, and I was glad to hear that he was indeed able to purchase a large piece of land. Our architects were already designing how we wanted our compound to look and function. There were even talks about having our own portal station there, but that would mean that we would need other substations in other cities to make it worth it.

While we were unloading everything, an idea came to me. "Hey, Roger, I’ve only ever heard of portal stations that use mana, but are there any portal stations that use energy as a source of fuel? If there is, in the future that should be a resource that we would have easier access to." Roger stopped working for a while as he thought, but eventually, he responded. "I can see the merit to that, but I have never heard of energy-based portal stations. But I will definitely do some research to see if that is possible."

After the work was done, Roger hooked up the wagon that brought me the blood, but he didn’t ask anything about what I did with it. I went with him and we went to the inn to have a proper meal before I sent him off and headed back to the smithy.

I had a lot of work to do. With the second-rank materials, I would be able to make myself a full second-rank armour set and I was also going to upgrade my other weapons to the second rank. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to more useful unique metals but fortunately, it didn't matter thanks to the high quality of the materials that Roger brought me.

Working with these materials was hard, but nothing compared to the dragon metal. I started with my armour and it didn't take long for my basic tailoring to rank up, giving me three options that all seemed to have their merits.

The first option was minor alterations, the second was fabric dyeing, and the third was strong sewing. None of these really jumped at me, but fabric dyeing would make everything easier. However, honestly, it was something that I wouldn't need an ability for.

The only ability that might be situationally useful is the minor alterations. If I remember correctly, this ability allows you to modify an item's size by a little bit. As this seemed the most useful, I picked that one. As my work continued, I did find it useful, but you could only stretch a material out so much before you started to affect its other properties, so the minor part was truly appropriate.

A little while later I was able to rank up my basic leatherworking. I got three choices, but this time the choice was obvious. I picked an ability called durable finish. This would make whatever I made last a lot longer.