I hadn't seen a battle that magnificent in a long time.

Every time I witness power levels of that size my knowledge and understanding of Ranker combat increases exponentially.

Even though towards the end of the battle, my life was put in serious risk, the gains and experience I had acquired in seeing everything play out was priceless.

I now knew what old man Kemoro meant when he talked about the importance of long distance and ranged combat, but I also saw how important close combat expertise was in crunch time.

Having a good understanding and mastery of both was paramount to survival in a fight to the death.

At higher levels there was no room for error, tactics and strategies are often changed and thought of on the fly, increasing pressure and your chances of dying.

There was no playing around, or scoping out the enemy to test his strength, a practice many Warriors sometimes employ; and that many theorize and hold true to foolishly.

No, every move is precise, concise, fast, and meant to kill.

Only a fool would let his enemy show all his cards willingly.

All information you have and need on the enemy should have been acquired before a meeting, and during the brief moment before battle.

Excellent Weapons and Armor were also indispensable for those that live the Ranker life.

Both Binomas and Shotuns weapons and armors were without a doubt powerful treasures anyone would sacrifice an arm and a leg for.

But for them it was part of their lifeline and key to victory.

Binomas without his amazing gloves might not have even been able to take one of Shotuns attacks or have the ability to counter attack.

None of the weapons I currently had could compare to anything they had used in battle.

The only one that comes close is my Slingshot, but who knows if that kind of weapon would even be viable in that high level of a battle.

Still I was inspired and motivated.

Improving both my ranged and close combat expertise, Mastering Finishing Techniques, and acquiring powerful weapons; these were the immediate goals I had set for myself that I knew would help me rise in the Ranks and more importantly stay alive.

I contemplated the best way to put all I had learned into practice.

At the moment I was constantly practicing my close combat techniques.

One day I'm sure I'll get to a level where someone will have to think twice before engaging me in a Martial fight.

Other than patience and hard work, for right now I didn’t really know how to accelerate that process.

As for long range combat, I had no choice but to rely on my Slingshot for the moment.

I had this nagging feeling that I hadn't really experienced a true Ranker battle, that would help reveal whether my long range combat skills were up to par.

Again there wasn’t much I could do there.

Now as for Mastering Finishing Techniques, I would just have to look around the shops around Martial Citadel and see if I can get lucky.

That kind of knowledge was certainly not something a pleb like me could get a hold of easily.

One thing I could do was to craft my own weapons and armor with what I had on me.

That was actually something I had already been thinking about but had held off on due to not knowing what approach to take.

But after this experience, ideas were swirling around my head like a storm.

Back in my days with the Toltemic, I had learned from them simple but effective techniques on how to craft weapons that were mightier than your normal basic weapons capable of harming magical beasts.

I had already made a spear and a blade with them, as well as the magical ammo that i would use instead of the Slingshots powerful default Elemental Ammo.

There was no way I could make a weapon the quality of what the two Clan Masters had, but I wasn't planning on directly engaging anyone of that level anyways.

If that ever happened my chances of living were slim to none.

But from my battle with the beasts in the forest the weapons I could craft were adequate enough for rankers around my level.

I decided to take a numbers approach, if I couldn't acquire quality then I would go with quantity; in the end, from what I learned of the battle, having multiple offensive and defensive options provided by your items or resources was a deciding factor on who took control of the battle, and ultimately come out victorious.

Area of effect was a function of a weapon or attack that was prominent in what I saw.

I was almost sure I had practically zero options in terms of being able to use that kind of attack or defensive maneuver.

What if I made the ground a trap?

Shoton had summoned his Jolts, not only to attack but to seal the area around him, and postpone a close quarter battle to great effect.

What if I created spikes that did that to the floor?

I found a spot in the mountainous wilderness by the road and set out camp.

From the beginning I was in no rush to get to Martial Citadel so staying out camping to prepare myself a little more was no big deal.

Even if I was truthfully getting tired of being basically a wild bum I couldn't ignore the inspiration I was currently going through.

I set up camp and dug out a ditch with a clay dust outlining, which I was planning to fill up with some leftover prepared magical blood I had left from my weapon creation days with the Toltemic.

Had I the same inspiration I had now, back then, I could’ve made way cooler and more useful weapons with the increased resources I had available to me at that time.

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I did something I had tried to avoid doing before, I added water to the prepared mana frog magic blood in order to make it more plentiful and last longer.

I hadn’t done it before as I was afraid it would dilute the magic blood's effectiveness.

But now I didn’t really have a choice.

After doing so, I kept it in its clay container until I had fully prepared the materials I was going to bathe in it.

I had come up with a two options for my area of effect problem, one was defensive and one was offensive.

Defensively I wanted to forge a set of small metal spikes, that I could deploy easily in emergency situations all around me, and seal an opponent’s movements at least in regards to the ground.

Making them out of metal would be ideal and I could also make them magical for added effect.

Offensively I wanted to create super small metal cubes that were loosely interconnected with each other.

That way I could grasp them all together when pulling the band of the slingshot all the way back, and prevent it from spreading too early and damaging my hand.

I also was going to make them magical.

I set up the Toltemic style forging oven in the ground and once I did, with some unused metal spear tips and knives I had made before, I focused on creating these small weapon type items.

It turned out to be a little more difficult than I thought since forging and shaping these items in a traditional manner turned out to be harder than I thought, because the dimensions were so small.

Soon with the help of the ground I cast the liquid metal in pre-made molds and let it cool before tempering it and finishing the product.

Eventually I succeeded in making a set of metal spikes and small metal puzzle-like cubes.

After forging the items I moved on to creating some armor like gloves, knee pads, and elbow braces out of some very tough beast leather the Toltemic could make, which I had.

I also reinforced it with the Skin of the King Culebra we had hunted which was the hardest reptilian skin I possessed.

Then I made a chest plate out of the the leather and shoulder blade of the mountain pig they had also hunted.

It was part of the Megafauna and King Beast parts whose parts they shared with me, that I used as the main chest plate material and further reinforced with the King Culebra skin, and even further layered with the small skins of the Winded Skink I had hunted before; who’s drained body’s I didn’t discard but saved until I found a use for them at this moment.

After having created new weapons and armor I put the finishing touches on the items and dunked them inside the magical blood for two weeks afraid that the water inside the mix would ruin the magic binding effect.

After the time was up I found the clay pit to have dried out of the magic blood as either the blood had evaporated or the magical parts of it had fully bonded to the items.

After some testing and a lot of relief I had found that the items did in fact absorb the blood's magical properties, although it definitely was a bit weaker than previous items I had made.

After happily testing and wearing the magical items and finding them to be successful, I sorted all my weapons I had into categories, and arranged them in a way where things would be their most battle efficient.

I also noted down an inventory of all the weapons, ammo, money and beast parts I had in written form so that I had a better idea of what I carried at all times.

I regards to beast parts even after crafting, I had a lot of meat and body parts of many common animals as well as rare megafauna and king beasts leftover.

The rare Megafauna and King Beast parts I didn't mind carrying around, as overall it wasnt so much, and I knew it would come in handy someday, but the normal beast parts I knew I had to figure out how to get rid of.

It was impressive I could actually carry so much of it in the sled without it spoiling; a testament to the Toltemics transportation and preservation methods, but I decided just in case once I got to the city I would find a way to sell it or get some use out of it.

One thing I found myself needing a lot of, but unfortunately lacking, was magical beast blood.

It seems you can never have enough magic beast blood, and body parts.

They are useful for crafting weapons and armor and probably many more things of high value.

Because of this, as soon as I cleaned up camp and organized my items for travel efficiency, I let the Guider take me towards my destination in a route that was off road but was adjacent to the road.

There I did some more hunting, despite my heavy load, with the main purpose of finding some more magical beasts.

My efforts were successful as I did manage to find some, but not many, along with some pretty cool beasts, like the Stone Hide Croc and Giant Hungry Lizard, which weren’t magical but were probably definitely valuable, as I knew reptilian parts usually were highly prized.

I knew I was already a bit overburdened, so in my harvesting and preservation of these non magical beasts, I only took what I needed and left most of the hide and meat, except for only a little I did take with me.

Eventually my travel off-road became boring, as I didn't encounter any more rare or magical beasts, even normal beasts were becoming quite rare, so I decided to take the main road again and quicken my travel.

After some days my destination was in sight.

I had finally made it to Martial Citadel.