“Can I just say.” Sylph exclaid, the boss monster before them gradually turning into dust, “That the fifth floors have beco suuupeeer boring?”
“You can say that but that does not make it true.” John sighed at his wind elental and looked around. They were in the heart of a great labyrinth of sandstone. The sun was shining down on them with rciless rays. John finally gave into the urge to sit down in the shade cast by one of the walls. An urge that had gone repressed until then.
The reason for this was quite simple: This was the fifth floor of the Wall Shadow I.D., or in other words: sitting down in the shadows was pretty much guaranteed to give one the last hug of one’s lifeti. He had pushed off going in there for a long while. In the end, the First Kill bonus was too important to skip out on.
Unlike what Sylph was insinuating, the Floor/Wave 5 bosses remained challenging. The difference from before was that they could be allowed three to five slip ups, rather than one or two. The problem of getting to them was also a continuous struggle. John had needed two whole days to push through the remaining four basic dungeons because, easy as the first four floors were, he still had to relearn all the bosses, layouts and mobs on his way down to each fifth-floor boss. That took the most ti. Once they got to the boss it was hard, yes, but not as ti consuming.
As he exited the Dungeon he noticed a window popping up.
“Sweet,” he said and with a smile. He was just looking for another one of those. There was a prospective one in the Quest he had gotten after dealing with the Nathalia situation. To get that, he needed to get ten Waves or Floors deep and he did not expect that to happen anyti soon.
The SEP was needed for Gno. The Earth Elental Summoning Skill was about to hit level 100 and with it ca the opportunity to evolve her to a higher Tier elental. Only one problem though, as John checked progress on the Skill, he realized that it was dead stuck at 99. ‘Huh?’ he thought and looked for any hints as to why this was. Unlike Undine, the system did not tell him of a damaged bond. Looking through the recollections of the Skillbook, he quickly found out that they required a ‘bonding experience’ of so variety. Details were exceptionally vague.
Out of frustration he looked into evolving the Skill anyway. He promptly got a detailed warning.
He walked to the table Magoi had set up and declared it his ‘will-have-to-do’ workbench. “I will finally make so equipnt, first things first,” he inspected his Bee. The thing had taken so damage during the Vermintide encounter as it swam in stomach acid for a bit. However, that was quickly repaired for the low cost of 50 Mana.
He also repaired Aclysia’s equipnt. Her three blades were in different states ranging from ‘barely used’ in the case of Rock and Wind to ‘barely usable’ as the Sword of Glory was little more than a blunt piece of chinked tal. This took a bit more of his mana but nothing he would not regenerate soon.
And then he inspected all the crafting materials he had gathered in the past six days. He had the two Spirit of the Radio and that one Warpstone Jewel that he wanted to use and on top of that he also had five floor bosses (The drops of “normal” bosses were scarcely worth tosh these days) drop the following two items that he could use:
Not a really impressive display but he was in need of so equipnt so he would do his best. Now, what piece of equipnt did he want to make? Weapons were out, he did not have the appropriate kind of material and he did not see himself holding a staff or anything. On top of that his Equipnt window did not have a Slot specifically for weapons, only left and right hands. It probably wouldn’t matter whether he wore an enchanted staff or gloves. ‘Gloves, yeah, that sounds good.’ John thought with an eye on his materials.
With the leather he could create the basic things and then use the other materials he had to reinforce and enchant the thing. Speaking of other materials, he turned to Aclysia. “Can you give a bit of Entherium, please?” he asked. “Of course, master.” Aclysia obeyed and about a minute later placed an orb of a silvery white tal on the table, which she had ford out of her own body.
Turned out that, with all the magic stuff Aclysia had been eating recently, Refined Body II had created sothing new from Titanium and Mana. At least he thought that it was new, John had no idea about all the magical alloys that might float around in the Abyss, chances were the tal already existed there but he hadn’t been aware of it until recently.
As one could see, it was not all that great, but it also was not all that bad. He piled the Rage Wolf Leather, Entherium and Warpstone Jewel together and used Craft. He only got the option to combine so that is exactly what he did. While having the ntal image of a pair of gloves he clicked the option. 500 Mana instantly vanished and the items on the table lded together, there was a flash of light and then the gloves laid there exactly like John imagined them.
They were made of the dark-grey leather, soft to the touch yet very durable, Entherium protecting the backside of his hand and fingers with small, segnted plates. In the middle of the biggest plate at the back of the gloves, half of the Warpstone Jewel was inlaid. He got a pop-up asking him which of the two Warpstone Jewel bonuses he wanted, the Mana 100 or the Mana Regeneration per minute 6, he chose the forr. John was much less concerned over his Mana Regeneration than his Mana Pool at the mont.
Now he still had the Refined Ectoplasm and Spirits of the Radios to use. Therefore, he took hold of these and used Enchant.
Well, he only had one slot free, which was a bumr to say the least. Well, he could always use the Spirit of the Radio on other clothes and Mana was more of his primary concern. He clicked on Use Items, chose the Refined Ectoplasm and added the Mana 50 to the list. That cost him another 200 Mana but he had it so no worries. He nad the end result “Power Gloves Version 1”
Next, he used a Spirit of the Radio on his shirt and pants. As he found out, or rather as he was told by Gaia, there was a slight problem here though.
Okay, so he only got Agility 10. Good enough in his book. He put on the gloves and turned to his companions. “So, I say we try our hand at a sixth floor today,” he announced.
Sylph imdiately raised her hand in favour. “Yay, sothing new, sothing new!” she chirped and bounced up and down in the air, like an overexcited bunny. “Way overdue, I was getting soooo boooooreeeed.”
“I an, I can burn whatever, so I don’t care that much…although I prefer a real challenge, so I guess I agree with the dunce over there.” Salamander said and also raised her hand. “If Master deems it necessary.” Aclysia said and timidly raised her hand. Undine had no opinion on the matter and just wobbled about while Gno only reluctantly agreed, “We ought to be careful and patient,” she reminded everyone even while raising her own arm.
The decision was made. They would venture to the sixth floor of whatever dungeon they were to choose.
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