Chapter 40: First Dungeon - Part 1 (1/2)
Shingi, during the week, had worked on Ranking up his MANA SENSE as he knew it could make a significant difference in the Dungeon. There were things that even his PERCEPTION wasn't able to detect. No matter what he tried, he couldn't pass the wall that was separating the Base Rank and Master Rank of MANA SENSE, though.
His VISUALIZATION was upgraded to Master Rank since he was overusing it every night to enable his TRANCE ROOM. This led to lower the cooldown of it by 1 hour.
As for the rest of his skills, there weren't any changes on their Ranks, but he had become more proficient in using them, especially his ACCELERATION.
Before, he could use it for almost 10 seconds without any breaks and would use all his SP, but now his limit was 30 seconds.
Same with his spells.
There weren't any new spells added to the list other than making the Earth version of his Light Blade, but both weren't considered spells from the System, just an effect of Enchantments. His casting time on it was lowered to 15 seconds, but he could hold them at most 7 seconds, and that is if his mind wasn't too strained.
As for his Mana Tree is grew a little but not enough to change his maximum mana. Still, his Mana Seeds, even if there weren't any new addition to them, they grew in power, and he could tell that they had almost enough for the cast of one of his Base Grade spell which should be their limit. He could also use one of them to 'feed' the Magnet Enchantment of his and make a Light or Earth blade right away. The cost of Mana of his Spells has been decreased as he got more familiar with them. However, his Base Grade one was still quite expensive, so having 14 Seeds to cover most or all of the cost could help when things go very wrong. Mana Fruits yet didn't have any, but since his Seeds didn't completely reach their limit, it made sense.
He worked on his Mithril Dagger by 'feeding' his mana at it the same way he was doing to purify a piece of metal. Still, in the Mithril, it had the effect of slowly becoming more familiar with the specific kind of mana and having more significant effects on the particular elements. It was also gradually increasing its quality. Of course, advancing its quality was very slow as there wasn't any noticeable change during the week. To make a piece of Mithril, it was needed to be exposed for years in mana and even more years to increase its quality. Still, at least it was making his mana move through the dagger easier, leading to a decrease in his casting speed on his spells as long as he used his dagger as a conductor.
And so he made it to the shop but this time without Annoue as he told her that she should train at home and work on her cooking skill and prepare dinner. He gave her a few gold coins to buy ingredients saying that it was the payment of one of the big orders. Still, in reality, it was a few of the coins he had taken from Varic and the Spatial Ring of the Players.
Outside the shop, there were the four students he spoke with them yesterday to make sure to meet.
During the week that passed, each of them had made some progress, but only one of them had finished its task.
Hineko's class had changed from Rogue to Thief Doctor.
To do that, he had to pickpocket quite a few individuals and use the earnings of those to get herbs and make medicines to help cure people who needed them without payment. With that class, his speed has been improved quite a lot as also he got the ALCHEMIST profession. He also got the POTION MAKING skill to create potions as long as he had the herbs needed and knew their recipe.
But for now, he knew how to create three potions, which were basic ones, and one usually wouldn't be able to learn all together as even if they were considered basic, they were somewhat expensive for a normal player to buy them all but Shingi covered the cost.
The potions were HP, MP, and SP regeneration potions. Each one would give a regeneration of the specific stat during a battle and increase it during less stressful times. Of course, some potions could restore a quantity of them right away as you drank them, but they were harder to find as they also needed at least Base Rank of Alchemy. Hineko's was still at Low Rank but was close to Base Rank as it was at level 9.
As for Mizuneko and Little Phoenix, who had a similar type of training but for different elements, they had improved quite a bit to be considered to have passed that test barely. Still, they had to do more, but at least from now on, they could raise their levels without worry as they took the first step they needed to take early on.
Wild Tycoon still needed to fulfill the requirements since the only enemies that had the requirements were the monsters of the dungeons. However, with the fight with the players the other day, she had taken two kills from there, but she still had a long way to get enough kills, but hopefully, in the Dungeon, she would find enough opponents.
After they were ready, they made their way towards the Dungeon but not before they make a party through the System, but it seemed they weren't able to add Shingi on it, most likely since he still didn't have a class cause it wasn't unheard of for an NPC to be at a party with Players.
The Party System could be enabled only by the Players, and it was considered one of the gifts to them from the Gods. It allowed them to share exp between them for each kill of the party and watched the HP and SP or MP bar of each other, which was useful for the healer of the group but didn't have any way of healing other than Hineko's potions and resting.
But even so, Shingi didn't consider it a problem as with his vast knowledge only by their current state and visual he could understand if one was in a good or bad state and also since the Dungeon was of a Low Level of 5-20 with over 15 being way deep in it there wouldn't be any high INT monsters so they could talk to each other without any worries.
Shingi explained what the plan was and the formation they would go with.
He and Hineko being the two with the higher STEALTH and similar abilities would scout ahead for monsters and any other encounters. One one is found they would follow a similar plan as he did in the Goblin Cave with Tycoon and Phoenix of letting Tycoon face some suitable opponents for her challenge, and they would be dealing with the rest. Also, Shingi and Mizuneko would keep any extra monsters for Tycoon's challenge that she couldn't fight if there were too many until she could fight them. Still, they had to use ways that wouldn't damage them. Still, both of them have a few ways as Mizuneko had a few Water spells that weren't dealing damage like WATER SPHERE that would surround the whole body of the target and normally drown them, but he could choose to let air getting in there so as not to cause damage but trap the target.