After returning to the camp, everyone gathered around their bed and got comfortable. Unlike what Hera expected, they didn't go to bed straight away. Instead, the Nagas pulled books, instruments, and a bottle of wine to relax during the night.
"Here you go, new blood. Careful, this is strong," Rris passed a cup of wine to Hera.
"Thanks. But what are we doing now?" Hera took the cup.
"Nothing. We are just resting until we get tired enough to sleep."
"Really? Shouldn't you guys be there in the temple?"
"Why? No one is in danger, and we can take as long as we want to finish things. Besides, what's the point of working ourselves to death? We need to rest and have some fun," Rris replied.
Hera glanced back to Darni, who was on the corner with Chika on his lap. Several strange items were around him, including a small incense pot and a few gemstones, "What about him?"
"Ah, he is doing something else. Honestly, I don't know exactly what it is," Rris replied.
"He's bonding with Chika. It's something like what you did with him, Rris," Casks explained.
"What? Can he do that? Wasn't it supposed to be something that only worked if two Naga did together? I mean, even some other races can't do what we did."
"It's not the same thing, just something similar. The sorceress," Casks turned to Hera, "The same one from the battle of Talrill. She gave the instructions to Darni and used a skill on Chika that allowed another person to complete the whole process. There is also a scroll involved. It's a whole thing. Honestly, neither Asher nor I can figure out how that works without the help of the sorceress."
"And now they are going to bond?" Hera asked.
"Yeah. They will share some of their strength and create a bond that will last until the end of one of their lives."
"Wait. Does that mean that if one of them dies, the other dies too?" Hera's eyes went wide.
"No, no. Not at all. But they will know or feel when the other dies. According to the sorceress, it will be like losing a piece of our soul, which shouldn't be a fun experience. Honestly, I understand that Darni is doing that to make Chika stronger, but I don't know why he feels like he has to do it. We have other ways to give her strength that would bring less risk to him," Casks sighed.
"I think that's exactly why he's doing it. We look at the snake and only see a sacred beast. He looks at her and sees a friend, someone who will stay with him for a long time. As people say, snakes are a man's best friend," Naph took a sip of the wine.
"I guess," Casks looked at Darni. Some strange lights were coming from the gems around him.
"Are you worried or just jealous?" Asher looked up from his book with a smirk.
"Oh, I'm so very jealous. After all, women are the ones who attack all other males during mating season, right?" Casks rolled her eyes.
Hera tried to watch Darni's ritual as closely as she could, but before anything interesting happened, the Naga and the snake were surrounded by mist, almost as if Chika was trying to give them some privacy, which could actually be happening. Hera continued to hang out with the rest of the people in the camp, talking, trading stories, and having fun. She tried to probe more information about the tamer or the room she lived in, but the Naga were adamant against talking about anything serious during their time of rest. This didn't mean that they wouldn't talk about something serious if the situation required that, but in a moment where there were no pressing matters, they would keep work for the next day.
About three hours later, when everyone in the camp was already tipsy and eating dinner, the mist surrounding Darni and Chika disappeared. The two of them were touching their foreheads and had their eyes closed. Not just that, but the snake was bigger. Before starting the ritual, Chika was small enough to curl up on anyone's shoulder. Now, the sacred beast was at least twice the size than it was before. Even so, she tried to climb on Darni as the enchanter moved to the rest of the group, but he had to stop to let Chika get settled. Instead of being just a cute pet on his shoulder, she now could even wrap around his body and rest her head on top of his, making the duo almost seem like a baby hydra. It took her a moment to get situated, but eventually, they managed to understand the new weight and size of the snake. Then, Darni came towards the rest of the group.
Hera noticed a couple of changes in the pair. Darni had a streak of scales that went from white to a dull gray. The same streak was on Chika's tail. Another notable difference was their eyes. Chika's missing eye now was replaced by a green eye, while Darni now had one silver eye. Hera could also feel a familiar sensation coming from Chika, the same feeling she felt with the real Chika outside the dungeon, although it was much weaker than she felt in the giant version.
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"How did it go?" Casks asked.
"It was a success, now Chika will be able to grow stronger with time, and she shares some of my skills," Darni explained.
"Is Naga Poison among the skills you share?" Hera asked.
Darni looked at her with a surprised expression, "Indeed. Can you feel it?"
Hera nodded, "Yeah. It's weak, but I can sense a connection to her now."
"You impress me, new blood. Even old Naga have issues in sensing the poison in others. I'm assuming you have some poison-related skills, correct?" Asher asked.
"Yeah. Just one, I focus on poisons, ailments, and fire when I'm fighting," Hera replied.
"Depending on the skill that would explain it," Asher scratched his chin.
"Speaking of which. While we were inside the temple, were there any attacks from monsters?" Darni asked.
"A few. But Chika took care of them all. I wasn't even able to reach them before the moles were gone."
Darni stopped for a moment, "I see. Is there anything we can do to help you be better prepared to defend against any attacks? I'm afraid my enchantments wouldn't last enough, and having one of them run out in the middle of a fight is far more dangerous than you imagine."
"Well… I do have a skill that could help in an emergency, but I would need some throwaway weapons. The skill kind of consumes them," Hera explained.
Darni just looked at Naph, who sighed and grabbed a rock before asking Hera, "Any weapon?"
"Any weapon, but I was thinking something like throwing daggers or maybe darts," Hera replied before explaining how the skill worked.
Naph tapped the rock and activated a skill. With a glow, the stone changed, and a bundle of a dozen small daggers appeared in its place. They were common, had no attribute scaling, and didn't look very sturdy. Probably, if Hera tried to attack a random creature with them, they would break. However, since their power would be coming only from Hera herself but it would include her skills and attributes, meaning that as long as she covered them with some mana reinforcement, she should be able to deal some considerable damage with them. Even more impressive was that Naph created the daggers in less than a minute. If Hera could learn to do something like that, she could have an endless supply of disposable weapons to trigger her skill.
She would have to ask Naph about that spell later, but it was very likely that her skill as a crafter allowed her to do something like that. Then again, could the Naga have roles like she expected? Hera had no idea how long ago it was since the roles were created. What if the Naga in the dungeon were from a time before the roles?
"Hey, I forgot to ask. But what are your roles?" Hera turned to the group.
"I'm a mage, Casks a researcher, Rris a fighter, Naph a crafter, and Darni is a controller. What about you?" Asher replied without even looking up from his book.
"I'm an explorer."
"Not many people go for that one. Everyone is worried about not being able to be good at any particular thing," Rris was already lying on his metal bed and spoke while staring at the ceiling.
"Well, as they say. A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one," Hera replied, remembering what Runir told her some time ago.
"I never heard that one," Casks was snuggling with Darni. Hera didn't realize, but everyone was getting ready to sleep.
"It's an old thing I heard. Anyway, are we doing shifts through the night?" Hera asked.
"Well… even though I trust my skills, I think that would be a good idea. Would you mind taking the first shift, new blood?" Darni turned to Hera.
"Not at all. Are we doing 3 or 4 shifts?"
"I think 3 would be enough. There are probably very few monsters around, and having a long, nice sleep would help everyone. Call me when you are done," Rris replied.
Hera nodded and let everyone get ready to sleep while she was on the lookout. It seemed like they would actually sleep here and not simply have some weird time skip like some dungeons did. In a way, it was kind of nice to have dungeons worry about things like rest. Then again, if they were about events that happened in the rooms, it would make sense that the people involved might need to sleep and rest. While the Naga started to sleep, Hera let her mind drift a bit. She kept thinking about what would happen to a new room. Could it have dungeons that were made by the system? Or would they only appear after something happened. If that was the case, then anyone who lived there would need to survive using only the natural resources of the room.
It didn't take long for Hera to start feeling sleepy and started to doze off. Not to fall asleep, she decided to try to do something to wake herself up. She first tried to make a dagger out of rock like Naph, but the exercise of trying to make her mana do a specific job was something very mellow to do. It required a lot of thinking and planning, but actually doing it wasn't something so exciting. Going to another route, Hera walked to a more open area of the cave and pulled up the recording of Rris showing his fighting style. She tried to copy his movement, being careful not to wake everyone up.
During her shift, there were a couple of moments where she thought she was hearing the sound of something getting close, but there was nothing when she went to look at it. When her shift was over, she called Rris and then went to her bed. On the next day, things were very much the same. The group just relaxed in the morning, then a few hours before lunch, everyone headed up, and the Naga entered the temple while Chika and Hera stood behind. The snake was much bigger now, but it was still acting like a puppy. Every mole that appeared was quickly killed by the snake. In fact, each attack was brutal. Chika didn't use her mist thing again. Instead, she would just lunge at the creatures biting off their head or limbs in a single strike. Even when the sacred beast didn't finish them off in the first move, she would quickly follow up with another bite, a tail attack, or even a poison spell that would quickly finish them off.
Later she cooked for the Naga and asked more about the tamer and the blade masters. The rest of the day was just the same as the day before, with more attacks from the moles, but still not enough for Hera to join the fights. During the next day, the same pattern repeated. Even more moles appeared, but only a single monster would come out each time, giving Chika all the exercise she needed. Only on the fourth day that things change.