Gregory gazed out into the night, going over all the new knowledge he had accumulated from the most recent skill book he learned. It jumped him a huge number of levels and proficiencies, making him much stronger and more effective in nearly all of his crafting arts. It also gave him level 99 in the skills he had previously had at advanced, since they would have been 99 had he still been at intermediate. Still though, it didn’t say 100% experience which meant there was likely still another level or rank above GRAND with enough training and hard work. He then began working on enchanting all of the jewelry and armor he had, any less rare precious stones he could find as well. He wanted to raise his enchanting level to at least ADVANCED before too long, so that he could increase the power of the armor he could make.

After a full night of hard work and motivation, entering his protected space to make the extra time needed to enchant everything, Gregory had managed ADVANCED enchanting and was able to use any of his spells for enchantments, as well as any enchantments or unique abilities he had previously encountered on armor and weapons. The power he possessed in multiple areas now was continuously growing, making him one of the most powerful crafters of all time. GRAND was a level that nobody else seemed to have, as the normal master in this time had what seemed to be a level somewhere around mid-ADVANCED to very low-EXPERT, making his current skills in crafting the greatest ever. Even his skills in enchanting now were on par with the best there were, and he could only keep on moving up from where he was.

My time to return to the present will be coming up soon now, though it will probably still be at least about a year before I can leave. Not only must Elizabeth and I begin our family, but I also need to make myself known as a person who has mastery over spatial and temporal magic. Traveling around Europe in this time should be all I need to do, and if it isn’t I can always go back and forward in time as necessary to make myself known. I have definitely gotten enough mana regen now though, I can keep my strongest spells going indefinitely, which is enough to put me far ahead of most people except maybe Elizabeth now. She has some mana regen, which that book said is extremely rare and considered to only be once in a generation.

The next morning came, and Gregory was just about ready to head out. For the first time in what was actually a couple years, Gregory felt more to life than just a goal to get back to his own time. He wanted to get to know Elizabeth, and not just because of the knowledge due to temporal magic that she would be his future… past… his wife. A while back, he found that he had the ability to protect his spouse with temporal magic the same way he would be protected, something that would allow him to be with Elizabeth forever. However, she would need to be willing to leave behind everything and follow him to the future in order to accept this new life. It would be hard to explain it to her; he had been keeping back so much from all these new friends of his. It would not be easy to explain to him that he is actually from a distant time in the future, that his “class” is actually of a legendary gamer along with two others, or that he is actually a mixed race being. It was rare here, though not unheard of. There was a fair share of mixed race humans, though many of them were mixed with other more humanoid races rather than animal or mythical races. The mixed race beings he saw were both Orc/Human and Elf/Human, and there were only very small villages of them. It seemed that the races existed outside of dungeons, they were just far more prevalent and less hidden in dungeons.

As they all got up and out of the inn, Charles led them to the next dungeon. Gregory could feel a stronger energy signature from this dungeon, though not much. It would definitely be harder to defeat, but Gregory had all the time in the world to train. When he entered his protected space again, he accessed his inventory and pulled out many skill books on buffs and blessings. The skills included ones to increase physical and magical resistances, strength, vitality, skills to cause and strengthen the regeneration speeds of mana and stamina, skills to increase magical power, a skill to increase physical offensive power, and skills to facilitate a small passive healing. These were all books he had amassed while in his own dungeon, and fighting the monsters in the most recent dungeon. All of these skills were immediately learned, and Gregory felt that he would be able to easily work as a true healer and support now. Even though he could keep them all going, it would take nearly all of his mana to keep them going for everybody. Overall, the combat power of the team would be higher, but Gregory would be left with only the ability to perform his most basic spells with all the rest of his mana going out for ally buffs.

Leaving his protected space, Gregory walked up to the dungeon entrance again when they got near it. I found the dungeon entrance, come on everybody. Gregory entered the dungeon immediately, and within a minute the others had followed him in. Seems that I will be able to meet up with Elizabeth more since she lives in London, perhaps I can actually return to my present in about a year or so. I just hope Elizabeth doesn’t feel uncomfortable being in a different time when she may have family in this time. Even though they had already gotten a clear idea of Gregory’s leadership, they realized that it was definitely better than even Charles’ abilities at leading them successfully.

Before doing anything else, Gregory decided to let them in on something. I have an ability that allows us to all group up to form a “party,” and I’ll be sending out “invites” so that you can all join. He kept the exact ability vague, but once they had all accepted, Gregory checked his party options. It was obvious that there would be some, especially since some of his skills even mentioned to the party. Looking at the window, he saw that there was a party experience share, and it was set to give experience based on participation. This meant for him that he would gain experience based on how much he helped in getting the kill. Since he gave everybody buffs and healing, he was getting about 50 percent of every kill they got, plus all of the experience for the kills he was getting. Moving forward, Gregory called out for them to assume the same position as the last dungeon, but that he would be buffing them all this time. Placing all the AGI and VIT, as well as the stamina regeneration buffs on everybody, the strength buffs on Charles and George, and the magical attack buffs on Elizabeth, with everybody getting the defensive buffs, Gregory had them all at top power. After all their buffs, they were surprised that Gregory was still able to attack at all with all the mana he was spending on keeping their strength up. He was not only saving enough to heal them, but also had enough to attack with huge bolts of mana. It just amazed them at how much he could spend without seeming to even start running out of mana, especially since they didn’t realize that he could generate all of his mana back every minute.

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They kept on moving through, Gregory gaining levels way faster this time than the last, and saw that this was an extremely beneficial way to grow stronger faster. He was gaining levels quite often, and just as they killed the last group of monsters, he received a level up notification. He knew it was level 153 now, and that it meant he had 254 status points to spend. He also saw that he had gained another 7 points to his CHA for leading, 3 to DEX, AGI, and SPD due to avoiding attacks and running through mobs, and had even gained an extra STR point. Placing 250 points in INT, he received a new skill notification, and he felt a huge bump to magical power. First, there was a new status that appeared, called MAP which when he clicked it realized it meant Mana Potency. It was a status that removed his ability to lower the mana cost of skills through leveling up the skill, but gave a passive reduction and transferred the increases to magic power from INT and WIS to itself. It also gained a level exactly between INT and WIS, reaching 750. Checking the reductions, he saw that he was only paying 32.5% of the original cost of the spells. It was a very good reduction in cost, and also saw that everybody else had this skill, which seemed to be exactly between INT and WIS for everybody else. Probably a stat that goes up passively for most people, but one that I didn’t have since my system is different. That would explain why I haven’t gotten the benefits from it exactly until now. It does seem to be stronger than leveling up the skill for cost, but the power is still lower it seems until I get the level up to at least around the 90s.

The skills Gregory just gained for the new level ups and status were also quite strong. The INT skill bumped his mana further yet, all the way up to 20000. For MAP, Gregory gained skills that increased strength of the magic for the first skills until 500, but then got a skill that gave him full manipulation of magical energy, called MYSTOKINESIS. As a skill it seemed very strong, but it had a note in the description about a mana cost that reduced with level ups in addition to the MAP stat as well as a very high base mana cost.  Now that he had leveled up his stats and had gained new skills, Gregory was probably strong enough at this point to individually take down the king of this dungeon, but either way would be strong enough to provide them support and attack at the same time without having to worry about mana even running low anymore.

Entering the dungeon lord area, Gregory saw a massive troll-like creature this time. His reveal showed that it was a gaint troll, it seemed his own ice and fire magic would be useless against the beast, and even his mana lances would do nothing to it. His best bet would be to try using his new skill of mystokinesis against it, that along with Elizabeth’s earth spells and George and Charles’ newfound power would be enough to take it out with some time. This creature was hard to take down, it appeared to be some kind of giant troll, and it had two things going for it. There were the resistances that could defend against temperature extremes and electrical attacks, a strong defense against normal magic, and incredibly high protection against physical weapons. It seemed that Gregory would need to use his mystokinesis to try emptying the magical veins of this creature so that he could actually hurt it with magic. As George and Charles were attacking the troll, Elizabeth was using her earth magic to keep it off balance and keep it open to attacks. Gregory on the other hand had channeled all the troll’s mana away so that he could attack it with magic. He used his spinning mana lances while using mystokinesis to keep the troll mana-free and was able to do some substantial damage to it. Thank goodness I actually have more mana now, I’d be unable to even attack right now if it weren’t for the extra mana from getting 500 INT.

Eventually, after hours of attacking, Gregory the only one that wasn’t really feeling fatigued, they managed to defeat the beast before them. Its level wasn’t outrageously high, but it had over 900 VIT and plenty of skills to boost natural healing and maximum health. It also had very high physical strength, being over 700, but it had relatively low AGI meaning it was slower than all of them except Gregory himself. It also had very low mental stats, and the protection against magic was likely an innate skill to these giant trolls. For defeating it, Gregory got a number of items, three skill books, a troll slayer title, gaint trolls great club, and troll’s fur cloth. The dungeon’s chest which was also likely a part of Gregory’s gamer skill contained massive amounts of gold, armor and weapons, as well as a high-mages robes. Gregory let everybody else take the earnings except for a portion of the gold. He kept that for himself to buy more goods. Leaving the dungeon, George and Charles were amazed at the loot haul, and even Elizabeth was surprised that she had gained as much as she did. Overall, Gregory gained 7 more levels from the troll, while all the rest of his team had gained 12 levels. They had gained more levels than he did for this dungeon, with George at 148, Elizabeth at 151, and Charles at 152. They were all much stronger, and very nearly at his level. Even their stats were much higher, Elizabeth had 350 in VIT and AGI now, with 600 in INT and WIS. George and Charles had 400 in their secondary stats respectively, while both had 600 INT and 600 in their primary physical stat.

His team was now very strong, and Gregory almost looked like the weak link in it. While his overall stats added up to more than theirs, even combined down to their number of stats, due to his much lower VIT and movement based stats, he was much more vulnerable. He needed to level up so that he could raise them now, but it would take some time, especially since he’d have to go back to dungeon’s in real time now to try and level his physical abilities since this most recent dungeon would now be the dungeon in his protected space. Splitting up after this dungeon was defeated, Gregory started walking back to London, Elizabeth walking the same path.