Kyron is currently rolling his shoulders and stretching, and I'm currently enjoying the view. He's bare-chested at the moment, showing off his lean but toned torso in all its glory. I especially like the view of those abs of his.
As we finished resting up, I offered to give him a massage as well and he discovered just how stiff his shoulders had been. He's not bothered thanking me for noticing, he knows that I noticed while we were fighting in the eastern area that he was a little stiff.
I probably should have given him a massage before we went up against the ugly dude.
"Alright," Kyron pulls his tunic and vest back on, then fixes his belt back on around his waist. "Let's head off."
"South this time!"
"Once again, you're not going to the air area," Kyron says as I start walking. "And now that I think about it, that was a nice dodge on the question before, Caleb."
"Since the fire zone has the Dungeon Boss," I say. "It's best if we don't do that area until the end."
Killing the Dungeon Boss will cause all other monsters in the Dungeon to despawn, and there will be no more monster spawns at all until after the Dungeon's reset.
"I also have no intention of running that zone twice," I say. "So we're only doing it once. These items we have are quickly becoming obsolete as well. My staff will be useful probably up to around the end of the southern zone, when we're facing off against the elementals. Even then, it will have largely lost its use, so I'll be relying on my magical abilities. By that point, however, I'll have gained enough Levels to make up for needing to spend Mana to use spells."
"And you can use items from this zone to enhance my sword's magic," he says. "And from the earth zone to strengthen the blade."
Affecting a magic item after its completion isn't something just anyone can do, but they didn't call me the Great Spellsmith for nothing. I made my first magic item when I was only five, and I could alter existing magic items when I was nine.
Making changes to them greatly reduces the power and uses of a weapon, though someone who knows what they're doing can make it seem like that's not the case. When people find out just how much has to go into doing that, however, they wonder why we don't just make an entirely new item.
It would literally be stronger.
In this case, however, it doesn't concern us as much. Even with me using up some of the expensive items in here to enhance and strengthen Kyron's sword, we won't be short on coin. It would honestly be better for me to change this sword to being able to harness [Enchant: Frost] without ill effects on the blade instead of cast it. The downside to that is that would be even more costly in terms of items needed and their strengths, and enhancing the strength of the spell isn't really as much of an issue. Doing that is also all that's really needed to enable Kyron to help deal with the fire zone to the north.
"Yup," I respond.
"Hold up," Kyron says. "Do you have enough to enhance more?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because while you were taking a nap after I gave you that massage," he says. "I used some of the Mana I recovered to make some stuff. That's why I needed longer to recover."
Kyron pulls from his ring a spear and a staff. Both are made entirely out of a single piece of metal. While I know they look professionally-done, they were conjured purely through his magic and are probably not as high-quality as they could have been. His limited magical abilities while we're lower in Level severely hinders things.
Weapons conjured by utilizing the metal aspect of earth magics to create and/or shape the metal into weapons can be just as excellent as a normal weapon made of the same material. One advantage that forged weapons have over conjured ones, however, is that they can hold more powerful enchantments and enhancements – those are done during the forging process.
We can add enhancements and enchantments to them after, but it's simply not as strong. This is where it becomes most obvious how inferior altering or adding to a weapon is after its creation becomes evident. At least, when not revealing the resources used.
Kyron apparently created both a sword and a spear.
"Want them able to harness fire magics?" I ask.
That's the natural counter to water magics, just as water magic is the natural counter to fire magics. It would be most beneficial to us if he were using them, so he probably wants to use [Enchant: Fire]. Using that on his [Sword of [Enchant: Frost]] would be an absolutely stupid thing to do.
"If possible," he says.
"I can enhance them up to resist it up to around 15 Magic of fire," I tell him. "So we probably won't deal with that until further into the southern zone. Without fire crystals, however, that's all I can do. It's just a basic metal-enhancement enchantment. The actual durability will be higher, but metal has an innate weakness to heat."
"That's fine," he says. "I just need them to last most of this zone."
I nod, then get to work on enhancing the weapons' durability using a combination of earth crystals and normal magic crystals, as well as one earth monster core each. There's no visible difference to the weapons, but their descriptions mention they've been enhanced with magic to strengthen them.
"Alright," I say. "Let's go, Ky!"
Kyron and I resume our trip into the southern zone, and he uses the spear against the boars this time, instead of a sword. Just like piercing attacks against softer targets, spears are better against boars than a sword is. Their longer reach makes it safer and easier to poke between the boars' ribs than a sword. Enchant-type spells also cost less on them as there's less covered by the spell's addition while not sacrificing any of the spell's power.
Just as the boars in the eastern zone were stone boars, these ones are water boars, with tusks that appear made of water. Every now and then, one of the boars has tusks made of ice instead. As we travel further in, we begin encountering deer that shoot high-pressured jets of water from their antlers, and I forgot how much I hate being targeted by those while not having the Mana capacity to just stop them with a [Fire Barrier].
Well, I do have the Mana for that, but I won't if I keep using it. Because of that, I have to repeatedly dodge the attacks while making sure to maintain attacks.
Our first real deviation from the eastern zone is when we reach the area where we'd have begun encountering boulders in the eastern zone. While there are boulders here, they're probably not going to increase to a high frequency, and they're also not the main change.
No, the main change is the appearance of springs and streams.
With those come a new monster as well. Water salamanders, which are monsters with bluish-green skin that love diving into deeper areas to avoid attacks and which can breathe out [Water Jet]s like a dragon breathes fire. Another of their attacks is spitting out a [Water Orb] about six inches in diameter, though if any are strong enough, they can do [Water Bomb]s instead, which are much more troublesome since bomb-type spells expel a lot more of their element than they're made up of. None of the ones here are going to be strong enough for that, though.
Neither of those latter two spells are too much of a bother apart from soaking us to the bone and causing us some chills due to the air here being a little chilly. The actual problem comes from the fact that the water salamander monsters always come out in pairs, and occasionally, one of them is an ice salamander instead.
Ice salamanders have bluish-white bodies, and they can use [Ice Jet], which is a variation of the jet-type spells that blasts shards of ice in a jet. Their other attack is [Freeze Jet], which is a jet of frosty air and nothing else… except for the fact that it freezes any water it touches. If someone is soaked because of the water salamander monsters' attacks, [Freeze Jet] is an absolute nightmare to deal with.
Avoiding it is better but not always possible, and I manipulate the heat in the air using [Fire Manipulation] to keep myself thaw. Since Kyron thaws out pretty fast the few times he gets struck by that, I'm going to assume that he's doing the same.
As we progress further and the sources of water become more frequent, sometimes forcing us to find alternate routes when the levels become too deep, two more types of monster appear. Giant flying fish that shoot high-speed bursts of water (despite being just water, the speed alone is enough to give them damaging force) are one. The second is a water variation of the snakes we fought in the eastern zone whose main ability is rendered useless against us because we never let them bite us.
Finally, we reach the zone with the water elementals. They aren't just floating around or anything, so we have to walk around until one makes its presence known to us.
A water elemental often takes the form of just a blob of water, but it can alter its shape to avoid attacks or initiate others. Their most common attack is a short burst of [Water Jet], but if they get close enough, they'll try to drown their opponent.
The ice variation is made up of shards of ice, and prefers to use [Ice Bolt] against its targets, and occasionally, [Ice Bomb]. Despite having an area-of-effect attack, ice elementals are actually easier to deal with than their inferior versions for one simple reason.
Their bodies aren't as fluid.
"Cay! My sword's broken!" Kyron calls out as he tosses the used weapon to the ground. "When are you going to take this out!"
Kyron punches at the water elemental we're facing off against at the moment, his fist wrapped in flames thanks to [Enchant: Flame]. In response, the water elemental shifts its form so that Kyron's fist passes into an empty space, enough air between the flames and the elemental to not touch it. Then the water elemental wraps itself around his hand to extinguish the flames and starts flowing to his face…
Only for a [Fire Bolt] to strike it from the side. That causes the elemental to release its grip on Kyron, and his subsequent [Enchant: Flame]-ed punch from his other fist pushes it back. Steam rises up from our attacks, the two of us currently strong enough magically to take it on. I'm not using my staff anymore as it's too weak against the elementals, and am instead just casting spells directly.
Kyron is only barely strong enough magically-speaking to cause steaming, while I'm strong enough to do some serious damage – when my spells hit.
"What do you think I'm doing?" I call back.
"Not using [Fireball], that's what!"
"Oh, right!"
I forgot that I'm able to cast bomb-type spells without having to worry about the Mana cost too much, now. It took me until the cost of 10 Mana for the base version of the spell was no longer a significant chunk of my maximum capacity for me to adjust to not being able to just throw them around.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Buy me a few moments!" I call back. "My casting skills got messed up with our deaths, so I have to spend the full time casting!"
"Just do it, you dork!"
I begin casting [Fireball], a three-inch orb of flames forming between my hands. The spell takes me almost ten seconds to cast, and as I work on it, the flames grow denser, turning almost liquid in form. Another 10 Levels or so, and it will truly turn to liquid flames. Before we died, I could turn them nearly completely solid in flames, which was pretty neat and rather terrifying.
To everyone else. Kyron said I shouldn't be trusted with that much magical power, but he's just a worrywart.
"Ky! Ky! Ky! Move out of the way!"
"Trying!"
After waiting a couple of more seconds for Kyron to try and shake off the water elemental, I throw the [Fireball], then make a grasping motion at my husband. He lets out a surprised yelp as the wind grabs him and yanks him back, far enough away to avoid the roughly ten-foot-wide radius my [Fireball] currently has.
The water elemental attempts to avoid the flying orb of water, but I simply snap once the spell is close enough and it detonates. A blazing inferno swirls out, the heat felt even from here, ten feet away from its edge.
+5.38% Experience!
"Aw, no Level!"
"As if you're even close enough for that," Kyron rolls his eyes. "You gained a Level five minutes before we got into this fight."
"Yeah, yeah," I say. "Let's try to find some ice elementals, I need ice crystals to upgrade your sword."
We continue fighting elementals for another hour, then I make the jump off the edge as Kyron chases after me.
"So," I tell Kyron after we land. "We both reached Level 12 before coming back, and that makes twice we've gained 6 Levels in a zone. Want to bet a sleepless night that we'll reach Level 25 before we leave here?"
"Cay, I love you to death," Kyron says. "But we are not going all night. To our bodies and minds, we just killed the Great Demon King a few hours ago, after an hour-and-a-half-long battle against him and his forces. We've had an exhausting day, and it was nearly midnight when we fought him. Instead of just getting some sleep – as we do need since our bodies are definitely the same – you decided to rush into this Dungeon. I am not taking that bet because I know you're going to go for it."
"But-"
"No," Kyron says. "We're going to hit Level 25 before we leave here, and we're already among the most powerful people in the world. We. Are. Going. To. Sleep. When. We. Leave."
"So you claim," I tell him.
"What does that mean?"
"You took my bet about us going down in history as great legends," I say. "That was a promise of a sleepless night."
"I didn't expect us to survive the battle!"
"Always be prepared for me to be right!" I pump my right fist into the air, flames swirling around it for a moment.
Kyron slams his head into his hands and groans, then he shakes his head before lifting it.
"Here," he tosses me some crystals. "Why don't you work on upgrading my sword now?"
I accept the sword as well, then get to work on upgrading it. As I first perform a magical inspection to see its enchantment network, I discover that the sword was actually made with the idea of possible upgrades or recharges in mind.
Hidden inside of the crosspiece are three things. On each arm of it is an ice monster core, while the center of it has a normal monster core inside, between the spot where the two ice crystals are. Items don't say when they can be recharged, but it's possible if they're designed for it.
Those crystals inside of it will allow someone who knows what they're doing to restore some of the sword's uses. That can only be done a limited number of times, but it can be useful when going into a bigger Dungeon. Some of them can take days or even weeks to complete.
A close inspection of the trio of cores yields me the information that it was designed for possible upgrades. The runic networks they're set into it… yes, the smith was no Minor-Grade smith who knew how to sacrifice power for additional uses.
This was made by a Moderate-Grade smith, which is just as rare as a Moderate-Tier warrior or mage. They knew exactly what they were doing.
I pull my staff out of my ring and perform a magical analysis of it. Hidden in the top of the staff, in a small "tunnel" created just for it, are three cores – a fire monster core on top and bottom, and a normal monster core in the middle. This one was also designed with the same intents as the sword was. The craftsmen for the two weapons were different, though – their enchanting styles don't match.
"Everything good?" Kyron asks.
"Yeah," I answer, then tell him what I discovered.
"I'm a bit confused, though," Kyron says. "Why would a god resurrect us and give us basic weapons, but also ones that can be upgraded or have their uses restored? Why didn't he just give us better weapons with more power and spells?"
"Because it wasn't a god who made them," I tell him. "Remember? These aren't Divine-Grade items-"
"Those are myths."
"My dad had a Divine-Grade spear," I tell him. "When a god makes an item, it's Divine-Grade. I knew that these were made by mortals from the start."
I put my staff away and get to work on upgrading Kyron's sword and restoring as many of its uses as I can.
"So a god stole weapons from a mortal?" Kyron asks. "Just to give to us? They're benevolent, Caleb, why would they-"
"It wasn't stolen," I tell him. "Think about it, Ky. We woke up in outfits that matched our original elemental affinities and preferences, with weapons to get us started here, but without being so overwhelmingly strong that we'd be able to actually gain Levels early on in the Dungeon, rather than just using up all of the weapons' uses before being able to handle stuff on our own.
"We also just happened to encounter a group of people who needed rescuing," I continue. "People who, don't forget, weren't heading for a town, but for a Specialty Dungeon that only Mythical-Tier people can enter. A Specialty Dungeon that appeared a few months ago, and whose condition was written in the language we spoke a thousand years ago, one which has been pretty much forgotten around here.
"If he set up that much work," I say. "And even took the care to put us in the clothes that we had on, and even took the care to make sure that we had our spatial rings – even if emptied – then don't you think he planned our weapons well, too?"
"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, Cay."
"He asked mortals to make our weapons and clothes," I say. "One or two people for our outfits, a smith for your sword, and a staff-maker for my staff. The clothes were to be ordinary clothes, but still of a high quality. The sword and staff were to be made basic, but capable of being upgraded to stronger abilities and have use restored, with a high number of uses to them. He knew that I would try to upgrade one of them while we were in here."
Whoever did this also knew that I'd actually try to read the enchantment setup first, so he knew I would discover their design without being told about it. If a magic item isn't designed for upgrades and restores, how I would do it would be pretty different.
It would also be less effective. I can now do a little bit more with these, and with less reduction to the power.
"Setting things up like this," I say. "Gives us a way to recover a small portion of the power that we lost from dying, Ky. He also likely used it to benefit some mortals that he'd taken a liking to. Do you want [Ice Arrow], [Ice Bomb], [Ice Strike], [Ice Arc], or [Freeze]?"
"Do I only get o-wait, you can put non-weapon projection spells on swords?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I've known you for about five years now, and I never knew that."
"Pretty much any spellsmith can do it," I tell him. "It's not unique to me. We just usually don't because it doesn't fit into the fighting style."
"Ah," he says. "You can do [Ice Arc]. It might not be necessary since I have plenty of Mana now, but it would be good to have. How many uses will it take up? I don't think I've used a sword recently that had an arc-type spell, and I don't remember what the ones I used before took."
Arc-type spells involve slashing a weapon (it can be a body part, too), a thin arc of the channeled element flying forward from the arc of the movement. It's more common among melee fighters, and is useful for pushing back enemies or dealing with groups of them when getting overwhelmed.
"It'll only take up 1 use," I tell him. "Don't know how powerful I can boost this yet, or how many uses I can bring it up to. Give me about fifteen minutes and I'll be done."
Kyron nods, then relaxes while watching me work. When I finish, I'm feeling pretty good about my work. The sword looks the same as it was before, but it's a fair bit better now than it had been before.
[Sword of Frost] Grade: Moderate Remaining Uses: 783 This sturdy sword has been magically-enhanced for additional durability and for resistance to cold, with a slight resistance to heat due to the frosty power flowing through it. [Enchant: Frost] and [Ice Slash] can be activated through this sword at 20 Magic each for a cost of 1 use per activation.
Unstated in the description, but it can also be used to channel the typical ice-related spells for swords, as well as the water-related ones. That's mostly because of its original design for being able to cast those spells – it needs resistance to ice in order to withstand them, after all. All I did was buff that up a little and give it a little bit more durability.
Unfortunately, due to its original design, I couldn't do much more than this. Chances are pretty good it won't be able to do much to the Dungeon Boss, and the material the sword is made from will likely wear out and melt if he doesn't maintain frost spells to protect it against any fire elementals and whatever the Dungeon Boss is.
At least, if we don't go after the fire zone now, but we're still going to go after the air zone first. The materials that are dropping grow in quality as the monsters grow in strength, and we can make some pretty good gear with what we'll be finding now. In fact, I already can with what dropped toward the end of the water zone, but the future drops will be even better.
Unfortunately, it doesn't affect the harvestable items. The herbs, flowers, other plants, and other various things we come across are all spawned the moment the Dungeon is entered, and they don't change. While most monsters have spawned from the start, the reason they can "change" is because they simply grow stronger – it's akin to gaining Levels. That's vastly different from turning from one thing into another.
"I can recharge it two more times," I tell Kyron as I hand him the sword. "But with fewer uses each time. When we face off against the fire elementals and the boss, make sure to have the sword coated in a frost spell like [Enchant: Frost] the entire time – it won't be able to resist their heat on its own."
"Alright," he says.
"Give me some of the earth crystals, earth monster cores, magic crystals, and monster cores you have," I tell him. "You collected basically all of those, and I need a few."
"Why?" He asks.
"To make you a sword for the air zone," I answer. "It won't be as good as if I had better metals to work with, but I can do some decent work here."
With 22 Magic, I can make significantly-better metal than Kyron can even with the 16 Magic he's at now. My skill in magic has always been better than his, too, so I can do better work than him, anyway. The sword I make will be inherently superior to the one he crafted during our last rest here at the Dungeon's entrance.
Inhaling deeply, I hold my hands close together, a blob of metal forming between them. The items that Kyron pulled out float toward me, carried by the air, and I remove the ones I don't need. Moving my hands, I work the metal with my magic. Fire magic heats it up as needed for this, and I'm able to place the enchantments directly inside the metal as I do this.
The earth monster cores and earth crystals we have aren't as good as the ice ones used in his sword or the fire ones used for my staff, so this sword will technically be inferior to those. I don't mind that so much, as it only needs to work well enough for this Dungeon.
Instead of imbuing the sword with a spell activation like the other sword is, I do something a little different. For this sword, I simply enhance the strength of the metal using the earth crystals and give it a channeling bonus. This means I don't have to worry about recharging it at some point, but I still set a trio of quarter-inch monster cores inside of the crosspiece to help in other ways.
Once I complete the sword, I give it an examination. It's a steel sword with brown runes along its fuller, the crosspiece and pommel both brown metal. An earth magic crystal is set into the pommel, which is patterned after a rock. Another is set into either side of the center of the crosspiece, in the center of the emblem for the element of earth.
Basic in appearance, yet somewhat elegant. A fine piece of work for a magically-crafted sword by someone with 22 Magic, if I say so myself.
[Sword of Greater Stone] Grade: Moderate Though forged through magic instead of an ordinary magic forge, this sword is still of high quality. The steel it was crafted from has been enhanced through magic, and all earth magics channeled through the blade have a 10% reduction in Mana cost.
"That's as high of a reduction as I could manage with the materials we have," I tell Kyron as I hand him the sword. "It's not that great of a piece, and I could have done much better if I had a proper smithy, but-"
"Caleb," Kyron says. "You and every blacksmith out there have a different way of judging weapons. This is a Moderate-Grade sword. You literally just made a Moderate-Grade sword with conjured metal and Minor-Grade crystals and cores. You didn't take the time normally needed to carefully imbue an enchanting network to make thing work. A sword like this would normally take two weeks to craft. I'd know, because I've commissioned such swords before."
"It's also nothing compared to the swords my Dad could forge," I say. "He probably could have made a Major-Grade sword with the same materials."
"It's kind of sad, you know," he says as he accepts the sword from me.
"What?" I ask.
"You promised me that you'd take me to meet your family after the war," Kyron answers. "But they've all been dead for a thousand years, now. I was looking forward to meeting the people that raised you until you ran off to… apparently start causing natural disasters. Please explain the volcano incident to me."
"I'm going to cook something to eat, now," I tell him. "Then take a nap. Make sure to rest up some more, Ky, as we've still got half the Dungeon to go and it only gets more difficult from here."