I blinked in surprise a bit after the satisfaction disappeared… The skill was essentially what I was doing when I used Arcana Transference. Maybe it would make the process easier, but the downside was the fact that it would break the item.
‘Well, you win some and you lose some.’
“Did something happen? Got a new skill or something?”
Clarice was up close again, studying my face. It looked like I made it too obvious thanks to my expression. She was sharp as ever. Oblivious as ever, too.
“You sure like to watch me a lot, don’t you?”
“Well, you don’t show that many reactions and expressions, after all. So, I can’t help it.”
“Would it be fine if I kept watching you all the time, too?”
“Of course… wait, wouldn’t this be kind of weird?”
“But when you do it, it isn’t?”
“Well, I can say for sure that I have no ill intentions or weird thoughts when I look at you.”
“I will do the same too.”
“... Yeah, sorry… I will be more mindful of this. I guess I wasn’t thinking thoroughly about my actions.”
“As long as you understand.”
Clarice went silent for a moment and then it looked like she began to think about all of her actions since she came to the human empire. Would she feel fine if a man did the same thing to her? Most of the things that she thought made her feel uncomfortable were based on her expressions. It looked like she had some hope, too.
Exploring that floor was a lot easier than we had expected, all thanks to the upgrades in our gear. Clarice was more focused too, so we found only a couple of dead ends along the way, and even before noon, we found the boss chamber…
This time, it had a proper gate… one made of stone with the engravings of a huge firebird. It seemed like a phoenix in my head if the tail split into several lines, but it was clearly a giant crow based on its characteristics. Regardless, no one was around.
“We are finally here…”
Jalal declared, while looking around. No one was there, but if the stone gate was closed, then it was safe to assume that the boss was waiting for the next challenge. I noticed Clarice squinting her eyes at the age after she found the footprints of that other party.
“Your brother’s friends are either pretty fast on their feet or they became the lunch for the crow ahead.”
“As much as I want to believe that they became monster food, I know that the second boss of a dungeon like this wouldn’t stop them. All members of the Silver Arrow are strong soldiers. Those close to the top are elite.”
“Putting that aside, this place will be pretty good for hunting.”
Everyone looked around. The space in front of the boss’ chamber was round like a smaller chamber of the boss. To reach the place, we used a long corridor, so we could wait for the monsters to come at us, and disposing of them was easy thanks to that.
“To make this efficient, let’s use the usual tactics that we use at night. Clive will deal with the monsters alone at night, but we will fight them during the day. Is that fine with you all?”
Everyone nodded, including me. Maybe Rebecca wouldn’t need my mana thanks to her new arrows, but it was still fine since I would receive half of all the experience that we could get in a day in such a place.
“All right then, rest in the meantime, Clive. We will continue hunting. If we need your assistance, we will return to borrow some of those tattoos of yours.”
I nodded and soon began to prepare for our camp. Once that was done, I decided to take a quick nap. I still could hear the sound of the others fighting nearby, but they weren’t getting closer, so it looked like they were doing well. One hour later, they returned looking a bit exhausted.
“Without your bow to cool down our surroundings, we sweat too much. It becomes worse when they almost hit us.”
In the end, Rebecca needed my mana to cool down the area with her Frostbolt. I could have lent her my bow, but that would be way too much help. It was better to gain experience with the tattoos.
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You received 20 experience points
The skill Mystic Link leveled up. You received 900 experience points
‘This one is close to reaching level ten too, huh? Still, this is the second skill of the class. I wonder if I will get another skill since this isn’t the main skill.’
I wasn’t using the main skill that much, Spellbinding Ink… I used a few times to store Magic Smoke Bomb on a tattoo, and Camouflage as well, but it was more efficient to make scrolls. I received more experience that way. Thanks to my help, the others didn’t return until it was night.
‘All right, time to work.’
I cracked my knuckles, even though I wasn’t going to punch anything. I was feeling even better since it was night and I took a nap in the afternoon. That could become a bad habit though, since it could reveal what I really was.
I began to kill the fire crows that approached us nonstop, and while I was taking their feathers, I also used the experience points that I got in the afternoon. It was only two thousand, but it was better than nothing.
‘Better than nothing… is ten times more than I could earn per day when I was at that house.’
Putting that aside, I realized that people with the Mystic Tattooist class could get a lot of experience if they increased their mana regeneration and used Mystic Link on a bunch of people. Free and completely safe experience. Perhaps I could offer such services somewhere else, but those who had magic would also focus on improving their mana regeneration.
Doing that kind of work wasn’t a bad idea, but I also had to focus on improving my crafting skills, it shouldn’t take to get another skill in Bowyer class if I make some decent bows, and I also need to improve the Fletcher class to make better projectiles. I had a lot of things to do on my hands.
The night passed really fast since I felt great all the time, and the fire crows didn’t scratch me even once as well. I felt like I was on a roll. Still, some of my arrows were destroyed thanks to overuse, but that was within my expectations.
“What do you guys think we should do? We have the chance to keep grinding today and tomorrow just fine. We have enough supplies to last that long while also considering the trip back home.”
Everyone began to think for a bit while we were having breakfast, Jalal could make the decision, but he decided to consult the others instead, just in case, since we all would need to be at the peak of our conditions to face the boss.
“We are doing fine for now, but we don’t know what will happen during the boss fight. If something happens, like we suffer too much damage or someone gets heavily injured, our fighting power will decrease. It is better if we act with that in mind.”
Everyone nodded at Rebecca’s words. Grinding as much as possible to get stronger is a good option, but we can’t grind in a couple of days to make the fight insanely easier. We will get a bit stronger once we defeat the boss, but we don’t have a healer with us and potions are expensive. Being careful on the first attempt was the best option. Besides, if we wait too long, some other party might show up and delay our plans further.
“All right then… we will challenge the boss tomorrow, midmorning. That way, Clive will have some room to rest before the fight. Can you finish enchanting Rebecca’s arrows by then, Clive?”
“No problem.”
“What about Clarice’s? She is a better archer than me.”
After Rebecca’s words, everyone looked at Clarice, but I already knew what she would say.
“I am not going to keep challenging this dungeon a bunch more times, so it is fine. Besides, it might cause some problems if people learn that a human enchanted my Elven Arrows. Sorry, but a lot of my people are really a bunch of pain in the asses.”
I expected as much… at least the first part. The second party was something that I decided to not forget since those kinds of guys could look for me to taint their work or creations. I didn’t need that kind of annoyance in my life.
Once the talk was done, the others left to hunt and then I decided to rest for a bit after enchanting the first arrow. After that, I woke up. I had enough mana to pull the enchantments. Rebecca was being mindful of the uses of my mana.
I was an enchanting one every two hours, so I wondered if there was something else that I could do that didn’t require increasing my mana regeneration. With the multipliers, the cost wouldn’t be that annoying, but I decided to look for a better solution. Using my head now and then to solve these kinds of problems was necessary too.
‘Improving the quality of the equipment that increases my health, mana, and stamina regeneration is the main option, but it is easier said than done. By combining those effects with the tattoos, I can practically double my health and stamina regeneration, but not my mana… perhaps I can do something else.’
I tried to use tattoos a bunch of times to increase mana regeneration, but the effect didn’t work because the tattoos consumed my mana upon activation when they increased all kinds of parameters. It would be insane if I could use one instead to increase mana regeneration.
It was like a solar panel setup designed to power a house. However, the system is inefficient, and much of the energy generated is lost in powering the converters or managing the system itself. Instead of generating a surplus of electricity, the system barely breaks even or even uses more power than it provides.
Now, imagine if there were an upgrade that could reduce the energy consumption of the system while improving efficiency, allowing the solar panels to produce a lot more electricity than the system requires operating. This would make a huge difference… back in my time, it took a few years for solar panels to pay themselves, but I couldn’t do something like that. My only option was to keep improving my skills and hope that I could find another way.
‘Perhaps if I could do the other way around…’
Getting mana from others using Mystic Link… was supposed to do the reverse of what the skill was supposed to do. Then again, I couldn’t force people to give me their mana without proper compensation.
‘The last option is… weapons with mana-draining effects. Those are extremely rare, and this effect is insanely powerful. Not only could I get a ton of money and experience by crafting items with that kind of effect, but I also would free myself from the shackles of my mana pool. Well, knowing my luck, it will take years for me to find something like that…’