Blacksmith vs. the System

Once I arrived at the fourth floor, I didn't start working immediately. Instead, I closed my eyes and observed what was going on at the main dungeon gate, examining the battle.

Harold was back in the mix, leading the team against the hordes. I noted that he was using a spear rather than his sword, which was likely an attempt to hide his most recent skill improvement. I hadn't asked him to, but I appreciated the initiative nonetheless.

The last thing I needed was for the other guards to start asking the same for their class skills, something I was reluctant to give before rebellion stopped being an immediate concern. I ignored the temptation to go and help them.

The nightfall was not too far away, and with it, the escaped dungeon monsters received another boost while getting more aggressive, which had something to do with the energy that the dungeon separated further to create the tainted energy and mana, but I had no idea why the intensity differed between night and day.

"I wish I could explore that instead of testing Forging," I said as I prepared the material. I still remembered the pain I felt when my Meditation skills had been improved. I wasn't looking forward to the second one.

I pulled one of the equipment I had forged out of dense mana, one with the slightest of blemishes. I took a deep breath before I raised my hammer, brought down the surface, and started to work.

[-210 Mana]

[-210 Mana]

[-210 Mana]

[Mana Repair (Epic) - 102 -> Mana Repair (Epic) - 103]

"Alright, that was good." I examined the repaired equipment, its surface gleaming with no fault. Unlike Meditation, my forging didn't evolve immediately, which was good news, confirming that it was the unique connection between the Meditation skill and the dungeon that had forced the transformation.

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I repeated the same thing with Mana Forge as well, and even as I held a gleaming spearhead, the skill didn't transform, which was good. My skill didn't improve, which wasn't as good of news, but that part wasn't a surprise.

After having raised it to its current level, further development was difficult.

Once I confirmed that the skill was working as expected, I went back to the entrance, taking another batch of claws to bring them to the lab, forging myself a new set of armor, as well as new weapons, each designed to damage the lizards.

Admittedly, the quality wasn't as high as I had hoped, as stabilizing the material for epic-quality equipment without the dungeon crystals was harder than doing the same for ordinary equipment.

Luckily, the dungeon provided me enough mana to make the process viable. Once I finished them, I forged fifty spearheads and twenty swords, all epic quality. But, I didn't distribute them immediately. They were to be used in the case of an emergency.

I didn't want to stay at that point, but as I started forging the weapons, I started to feel a sense of being overdrawn from the dungeon, which signaled that I might have overdrawn its capacity somewhat. It wasn't too much of a surprise.

Even before building that connection, I had been using the dungeon products a lot, from using the shards to mana to aggressively hunting the insects, each costing the dungeon some mana. Then, there was the fact that there were already ten thousand people in the dungeon, aggressively hunting on the first three floors.

Not to mention, Maria had consumed a truly shocking amount of mana during the short yet memorable defense against the ascended, which was also significant.

I didn't know where the limits of the dungeon lay, but I decided to play it safe. The dungeon seemed to use mana as a critical step during the breakdown process, and draining its reserves might have slowed down the renewal.

It wasn't like I could freely arm everyone with epic-quality equipment. My armor was the biggest source of safety, and arming the guards with weapons strong enough to damage it might be a dangerous life choice.

"No wonder the city lords all rely on Charisma," I said as I put the handles for the spears. I would like to believe that I wouldn't have used Charisma to brainwash people even if I possessed it, but it was one temptation I was glad I didn't have to deal with.

Once the weapons were forged, I went back to the first floor, carrying the weapons in a sealed box, to be used in case of an emergency. An emergency might occur while the farmers leveled up, which they had been delaying until my order.

Initially, I had been planning to leave the leveling to tomorrow, but now that my own experimentation had gone smoother than I expected, I could move that forward before nightfall. But, either way, I needed to be there.

There were several reasons for that. If I was being honest, curiosity was a big part of it. I wanted to be there to observe the process seriously.

However, that was far from the only reason. Safety was a much more important concern. My own experience with the class upgrade — which felt like ages ago — had shown that monsters reacted to it badly. Admittedly, I didn't know how much of it was about the class upgrade, and how much of it was due to mana fluctuations which wouldn't be a problem for us, but either way, it seemed like an idea that was worth taking precautions against.

Then, there were the more practical concerns, such as how much mana it would take in terms of claws, and what would happen if we released all that tainted energy at once.

But, above all, I needed to see how the freed tainted energy would act. While my brief experiments had shown that the tainted energy from broken claws had been repelled by the dungeon gate, there was no guarantee that it would react the same way if the tainted energy was from hundreds of claws at once.

I left the box filled with epic weapons on the first floor, ready to be leveraged in case the lizards reacted worse than I had expected, and stepped into the opening. "Everything going well?" I asked Harold.

"Excellent, sir," he said as he pointed at the huge pile of claws. "The weapons are truly making a difference."

"Good. Do you think you can handle the night equally easily?"

That made his smile fade. "I'm not sure, sir," he said. "Nighttime can be tricky, especially near a breached dungeon," he said. "We have the weaponry for it, but it won't be easy without a proper defensive fort. It won't be too bad for the first few nights, but still…"

I paused, wondering how long it would take to fashion some walls out of metal that could resist their flame aura. It shouldn't be too hard. "A portable encampment could be arranged," I decided. "It won't hold back truly strong ones, but it should work against the ordinary monsters."

With the production line in place, we should have enough to coat the stone walls with metal, which should work as a stopgap measure.

"That would work, but…" he said as he looked at the farmers at the center of the formation.

"You need them to upgrade their class," I said.

"That would allow them to at least use Common Skills," he said. "Not to mention, finally having Strength will increase their combat potential significantly."

"Don't worry. I'm here for that," I said and glanced around, deciding where to place the crusher. In the end, I decided that the edge of the base was the best choice. "Bring the first candidate while I set it up," I said before walking toward the corner.

As I walked, I looked toward the horizon, where the sun was about to disappear, and tightened my grip on my new weapons. I hoped that there would be no beast wave, as we were not prepared for it.

While Harold picked the first candidate, I quickly built the crusher, with two extra rooms. The one that was leveling to step in, so that the structure didn't waste any mana, while the second had several thick layers to keep the tainted energy in.

"S-sir, thank you for the opportunity. I won't disappoint," the farmer said as he stood in front of me. A man in his thirties, with a weary, yet hopeful face.

"I know you won't," I said, not knowing what to say. I understood his emotions, but finding the appropriate reaction was difficult, especially with the guards watching for the signs of weakness to pounce. "You have Rare Nurture, right?" I asked. He nodded. "What are the class options?" I asked.

"Advanced farmer only, sir," he said.

"Good, step onto the door, and when I tap the door, activate the class upgrade," I said. He followed my direction, and I activated the crusher and gave the signal.

Inside the metal room, I could feel the siphoning of the mana easily. I continued to crush the claws in small groups as I watched the perimeter.

There was no sudden increase in monster attacks, which suggested that the commotion during my leveling was more about the shift in environmental mana than a direct impact. Then, I turned my attention to the tainted energy that had been gathering at the container, which was significantly denser at the side away from the dungeon gate, but as it gathered more, that repelling effect started to work less, showing that increasing density gave them an additional feature.

An interesting feature, one that I couldn't experiment with for the moment.

Instead, I replaced the sealed box once the crushed claws reached a hundred, and continued the process. I had to crush almost four hundred claws before the siphoning had ended. I opened the door, and he stepped out.

It was more than I had expected, making that class truly an expensive endeavor. Especially since we could move somewhere with atmospheric mana to achieve the same for free.

But, those thoughts stopped when the farmer stepped out, only to bow at me.

"Thank you, sir," he said and bowed. "I promise that I'll be loyal to you forever."

"Just defend your fellow farmers well. That's all I ask," I said, feeling self-conscious. I looked at Harold. "Give him a skill, and send in the next one," I said. "We can handle a few more before nightfall."