Gregory kept following Charles and the rest of the party he had just joined. They definitely welcomed him, and they couldn’t help but feel that they were hugely rewarded by accepting him as part of their group. They all realized his strength, and Elizabeth thought he was just incredibly attractive due to the characteristics his body possessed. There was the hair, which was totally different from many others his age being entirely white. It made him look much smarter, which she really liked about him. There was also his modesty, which many people, even their group, did not possess to Gregory’s degree. She also loved how he was very generous, offering armor to people that he had barely met, which she could tell was definitely a very strong armor for a regular person to be making. Charles’ seemed to resist magic, and George’s was incredibly light and flexible despite being made mostly of metal.
For her, he also gave a gift, though one in secret that he didn’t want the others to see. It was a book, one that looked like it was about a way to naturally generate magical energy. Reading over it a little bit, it turned out that it would generate a quarter of her magical energy every minute. This was an incredibly rare and powerful ability, for him to have a book meant that he either bought it or wrote it. Sharing such a strong ability with others was unheard of, especially one this strong as most only know of one to make it a ten percent a minute. Of course, as she knew, none of these abilities work with another regeneration ability, which if he already has would be why he gave her the book. She also knew why he gave it to her in secret. This book dwarfs the value of the armor, even armor that strong. For Charles and George to be able to keep on using their combat skills as they had been with magical armor nonetheless, was very difficult for most people. This Gregory seemed to be undeniably strong and diversified in skills despite his age.
When they finally reached the area where the dungeon was rumored to be, Charles recommended they split up since people always enter a dungeon in the same place and just yell for the rest when they feel the dungeon’s pull. As they spread out, Gregory immediately saw an area that looked like a “film” in the air. He could feel that it was spatial magic, and meant that it was likely where the entrance to the dungeon would be. Stepping forward, he could feel the pull and yelled out. ”Hey, it is over here. I found the dungeon entrance.”
Entering inside, Gregory found that they followed very shortly after. After they were all inside the dungeon, Charles made a suggestion. ”Since you are the healer here Gregory, how about you try to lead the attack. Keep yourself mostly covered and safe. We had a similar setup when Elizabeth joined the team as well, we just want to make sure that we don’t do anything to pull too far ahead of your location or leave you vulnerable.”
Gregory decided to keep himself in the middle of their group, the warrior and assassin in front, and Elizabeth in the rear. Both he and Elizabeth had strong magic, but hers should actually be a bit stronger with her INT. On top of that, he could help take care of monsters in front of the group that the melee fighters couldn’t handle. ”You probably already have this as a setup, but I think you and George should head up the group Charles. I will stay in the middle and support the front and hit any attackers that you cannot beat with physical weapons, while Elizabeth will stand in back and take care of anything trying to attack us from the side and rear. Ideally, when you see anything you know you can’t beat with physical weapons, you should try to avoid it for Elizabeth to handle. I will also take care of anything I can with magic, but will make sure to keep healing a priority.” They all took their positions, and Gregory looked at everybody’s levels again. It seemed that they had all done some solo training in their time off. Elizabeth had raised her VIT and AGI some, both being at 210. Charles and George had managed to raise their secondary physical stats to 230 and 225 respectively. They also all went up a level, which makes sense considering their stats had risen.
Since he had the job of healer, he knew that they expected his combat to be lower than theirs, but they also knew that he was strong in combat to have gotten through a dungeon by himself. They weren’t just going to baby him, but they wanted to keep him out of harm and focus on keeping his mana for healing when necessary. Moving into the dungeon now, he was giving orders on what to pass up for Elizabeth and what to attack. He made sure to keep the group centralized, moving as a cohesive unit and together. Doing this apparently was not expected of his CHA level, but his WIS and INT also did some to passively increase his effectiveness where CHA would do the same. The reason he could tell it was challenging his CHA is that there were passive gains popping up every now and again, raising it faster than he expected.
Before long, they had made it to the dungeon lord. Getting here was apparently being done at a pace that the rest of the team had not expected, but Gregory thought it seemed about right considering his solo clear speed and that they were in a team that was working very cohesively. Gregory never let them fall below a half of their health, higher if it seemed that there were monsters around that could kill anybody in a single hit from their remaining health. At the dungeon lord, Gregory saw stats this time that seemed would make it very hard to beat it. The monster was a giant living gem, made from an indeterminable substance. Revealing the stats and status on the dungeon lord showed that it was definitely very strong, was resilient to generic magic, and was resistant to physical attacks from opponents with a low strength stat. Gregory immediately ordered Elizabeth to start launching her earth based attacks at it, while Charles and George should start swinging with their strongest attacks. Gregory meanwhile was launching ice spells at it, the intention being to freeze it. It took almost a half hour of fighting before it finally fell. Even with his full range of magic, Gregory doubted being able to defeat it alone. He also got his rewards auto-deposited to his inventory, which included a skill book for jewelry crafting in addition to a large sum of jewels. Another reward was a large amount of a crystalline thread, something that Gregory had never seen before, but seemed to be an incredibly strong tailoring material.
When it did die, Gregory saw a notification for his CHA reaching 100. When this happened, there were two notification windows. One that notified of a new passive skill increasing the trust people put in him, with additional trust and belief from those who feel drawn to him at all. The second window was a perk, it was called “THE HERALD,” which allowed him to change his own title as well as those of any other as long as he knew what the new title would do. The requirements for this perk were 200+ INT, and 100+ CHA. The reasons seemed to be needing to memorize the requirements of all titles, as well as knowing the title names and what they could do. Since he obtained this, he checked all the titles currently available to him. Dungeon Hunter was one of them, which was accessible to anybody that had completed a dungeon solo. The benefits were increased damage to any enemies in a dungeon, as well as increased damage resistance inside of a dungeon. He decided to set this title for now, since it would be the one to benefit the rest of the team the most right now.
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After walking a little further along in the dungeon toward the exit, there was a chest, something that confused not just Gregory, but the rest of his team as well. It was the first time they had ever seen anything like this, real objects inside of a dungeon. Going to the chest, the rest of his team opened it to reveal some pretty impressive dungeon rewards. ’Is this a side-effect of my class on the entire dungeon? Leaving a chest for those that complete it with me?’ Moving toward the rest of his team, Gregory saw them setting aside the metal and other crafting goods. When he got all the way to the rest of his team, they had set aside the remainder of the chest and placed it in a sack for Gregory. ”This is for you, you seem to be a very strong crafter, and we’d all really like some stronger gear made up. The new armor you made us was really strong, so just make us some new weapons and shields. Anything left over you can keep for your own blacksmithing.”
Gregory was amazed at this, they really seemed to place a good bit of trust in him about getting them new weapons and equipment. It wasn’t just his actions either, it seemed that his new CHA skill was already working somewhat. Charles then spoke up again regarding the next dungeon they wanted to clear. ”Alright, there was just one other planned dungeon we wanted to go beat. If we could go over there right now, we could get it taken care of immediately and go to London for the rest of the time. It is at least a day away though, so will need to spend the night in an inn for the night once we get closer.” Gregory grabbed the sack and slung it over his shoulder. He would need to make a new bag for himself when he got back to London, perhaps enchant it with a spatial spell as a reason to why I can carry so much. It will also reduce weight since they will be expecting me to carry around everything I pick up.
Heading out of the dungeon, they began walking toward the next dungeon. Gregory also checked everybody’s levels and realized that they had all gone up between seventeen and twenty levels to between level 119 and 125. George was at level 119, Elizabeth at 121, and Charles at 125. Their power went up quite a bit with this dungeon, Gregory also went up by five levels, now at level 134, and having a total of 64 stat points to spend. It was at least an 18 hour walk, and it was already almost six at night, so they stayed at an inn tonight where they had dinner and could get an early start the next morning. They all stayed in their own separate rooms, eating dinner together before heading to sleep.
They knew of an inn about fifteen hours away that was almost always empty, and would be a good place to rest until they were less fatigued. While walking, Gregory spent most of his time talking to Elizabeth, while Charles and George were investigating the items they grabbed from the dungeon. There were many pieces of jewelry that seemed to give them quite an enhancement, as well as some weapons they immediately swapped out their current weapons for. The new weapons they could tell were much stronger and were enchanted with magical elements. Gregory was helping teach Elizabeth how to naturally generate her magical energy, which actually seemed to be going very well. Eventually, a little before reaching the inn, Elizabeth understood how to naturally generate magical energy by pulling it in from outside. Gregory smiled and laughed along with her about this, and congratulated her on her ability to quickly understand this ability. This skill would be one that would drastically improve her combat ability, since she was heavily restricted by magical energy in any long and drawn out combat. The ability to naturally generate it would mean hugely increased ability to stay and help in fights. In fact, she was so ecstatic about this that she leaned in and gave Gregory a hug. Gregory was shocked and confused by this action for just a moment before giving her a hug back.
Reaching the inn, Elizabeth had Gregory wait outside with her while Charles and George went inside to get their own rooms. ”I hope you didn’t mind me hugging you back there, I was just so happy that you helped me and you were so close. I just feel so embarrassed about it, and wanted to let you know that I didn’t mean anything by it.” She was only telling a half truth, she had started developing feelings for Gregory, just as Gregory had for her, but she was incredibly embarrassed about giving him a hug like that. ”I don’t mind, I completely understand feeling that way. I always feel much happier and forget things when I am in a really good mood and happy about something.” Elizabeth blushed at this, amazed that Gregory took it as well as he did since many thought it was strange to show affection like this. ”Thank you so much, you have got to be one of the kindest people I know to feel this way though. Anyways, we should probably get our rooms right away.”
Gregory walked slowly into the inn, and bought keys for a room after getting inside. Despite not needing sleep, he still got a room since he could always use it as a place to set up a spot to do some training for his skills. Before heading to dinner, Gregory wanted to check on something though. He pulled out the most recent skill book he had gotten, immediately advancing his jewelry crafting to advanced, and then also pulled out the Skill Advancement Text – GRAND book that he had gotten what felt like ages ago back when he first started blacksmithing. This time, though, it turned out that it was usable. It gave him a notification that it would increase armorcrafting, weaponcrafting, jewelry crafting, and tailoring to GRAND despite their current ranks. It seemed that it would be an incredibly powerful book to read, bringing him past the expert and master levels despite not having done any training in them. It also seemed that GRAND would be the highest level, so he could make near perfect crafts and much stronger crafts when he does use the book. Without hesitation, he accepted consuming the book, and the knowledge and experience flooded his body and mind. It was as if he had been working on these crafts for countless years, and was exhausted for a second before reobtaining his composure. Finishing with the books, he headed down for dinner, not wanting to be late.
He reached the room just in time, since everybody else was also just getting down. Charles and George opted out for the optimum combination of armor, something that Gregory expected no less of. One thing he didn’t expect though, is that he could now passively see armor stats and benefits, as well as what level of a craft they were. It was an innate knowledge for having such a high ability in the crafting skills now. He sat down next to Elizabeth, and talked started asking her about herself. She said that she also lived in London, but wasn’t going to say where exactly in London yet. She seemed like she was just trying to keep it to herself, as if she had been let down in the past over something. He had no intention of ever letting her down, and would do everything in his power to protect her no matter what his personal cost was. When dinner finished, everybody left to go to their rooms and get some sleep for the dungeon the next day. Gregory got out the jewelry and jewels and began crafting, he wanted to raise his Enchanting skill and see what new benefits it would reward him.