The floor below my feet is glossy and clear with the faintest blue tint, as if I'm standing on a frozen lake.
Maria and Abby stand on a raised ice sculpture, a creation of the blond-haired hunter's magic. The entire dungeon around us doesn't look much different. As I activate my fire to counter the cold, plumes of steam start coming off my body, and each step I take sinks into the ground, lightly melting the icy floor.
After a quick scan of the area, I find dozens of level 600 to 608 mobs within 3 km of us. With the new high-definition senses of my enemy detection skill, I can see they are all frost blue serpents slithering over the ice.
Each has deep royal blue eyes and a change in scale pattern around their heads, tinted gold to resemble a small crown.
The moment my heat waves and the radiation from my passive intimidation skill enter the dungeon, many enemies turn our way. Some even shift colors to a metallic silver as they activate a body hardening skill and lock eyes in our general direction.
"Looks like we have company already."
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[+1 PP]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[+44,120,650 MCP]
The monsters are incredibly quick and agile, but with my buffs on full blast and a dungeon full of mana to consume, my abilities match and surpass theirs with ease. I reach level 608 and gain an additional 1 PP from my absorption perk.
The three of us fight in a group, starting off by sprinting from monster to monster. Then, once points are set, I dungeon-walk us from opponent to opponent, taking turns on monsters so my teammates can stay within my domain and keep their skills and MCP absorption perks.
Farming alone might be a little faster, but it's not too much of a time suck. They can both take out their enemies in one to two hits, and the serpents travel in groups of one to three, so sometimes it's in our best interest to fight together.
I work on my Qi control a bit, but even my normal Qi-infused sword strikes are more than enough to obliterate the opponent. This session is more about raising my level and gaining more base stat points.
A few monsters drop an item called [Ice Serpent's Scale] with two stats on it [+80% Ice Magic Resistance][+50% All Magic Resistance].
I place 5 of them into my item storage to sell another time and don't think twice about the drops in this dungeon until I hear Maria scream in excitement after about an hour of farming.
"I got one! Look at this!"
A large serpent dissolves by Maria's feet, and what's left in its place is a dark royal blue stone pouring out heavy plumes of light blue mist.
As I approach and my footsteps melt the icy floor, the waves of energy coming off the crystal refreeze the puddles into their original solid form. I cross my arms and reply as Maria lifts it in the air with the tip of her sword.
"An Ice Element Stone. Pretty rare one, and extremely strong too, from a level 605 monster."
"Yeah! Maybe I could make a new weapon out of this, or some armor, or some interesting gear from one of the Craftsmen back in Valor City."
I nod but don't reply for a moment as I think.
My sword took in over half a dozen firestones, upgrading its power to a whole new level.
If the drop rate of these ice stones is close to 1% as it seems, Maria could farm a ton of these gems and make an overpowered set if she knew this was possible.
She turns to me while I ponder.
"Hey Jay, could you hold this for me in your storage system? I don't want it to lose its power...and I don't have a containment case on me."
I nod, opening up a small spatial magic portal and letting her drop it off her sword to fall inside.
After, there's another pause as it's clear I have something to say, but both Abby and Maria are waiting for me to say it.
"You know, I was the one that killed the Sector 2 leader... I absorbed his Craftsmanship skill."
I deactivate the Domain to cancel out their current shared skills and add the craftsmanship skill to their status to show them exactly what I'm talking about.
Abby's eyes go wide as she stares down at her status, and pulls a few dropped items out of her storage.
In a matter of seconds, and a small white flash of light, old useless dropped items in her inventory turn into high-quality black glossy daggers.
Maria looks through it too, pulling out a few items of her own to test out.
While they look down at their status screens in awe, I smile, pulling out the 5 serpent scales I farmed from the mobs in the dungeon earlier, and add them all together on a single craft selection to create a pendant. The option goes grey once I add my 3rd scale. So, it seems I either need to be of a higher level to merge more of these, or this is just the maximum I can craft for this specific item.
Slots to add a blood bond as well as imbuing skills and element stone still glow blue, ready for use, but I don't click any of them.
There's still a lot to learn about this craftsmanship skill.
The 3 scales all merge together in a flash of light and create a tiny white pendant with a silver string around it. After a quick appraisal, I see the vast improvement.
Enchanted Ice Serpent's Pendant [+110% Agility] [+75% Magic Resistance] [+95% Ice Magic Resistance]
I decide to swap out this item I made on a whim for my Serpent King's Scale [+45% Agility] [+45% Magic Resistance] that I received a long time ago, improving the optimization of my item slots. They basically give the same buffs, my new item is just much better.
After swapping pendants, and a few more flashes of light from Abby, Maria looks up at me and raises a question.
"Mythic Grade? This is the skill you got from the Sector 2 Leader...? Is that why he was said to be an irreplaceable genius craftsman? I've never heard of a skill rank like this...."
I nod.
"Yes, it has far more capabilities than any legendary grade skill. Merging items, adding multiple element stones to an already crafted item, and imbuing skills into gear and equipment are a few."
Abby looks up.
"So we wouldn't even need Lith's team of craftsmen then. This is why you're hesitant to take his help, isn't it? Because you could just do it all yourself?"
She lets out a laugh.
"Yes, that's part of it... However, I'm definitely considering his offer. There are just going to be some very drastic changes and counterpoints I need to make."
I pause.
"And- I think this goes without saying, but not a word of this Mythic Grade Skill to anyone."
Two nods and replies of agreement from Maria and Abby followed by the wisps of green magic from my Lie detector skill solidify the point. Then, I bring up why I showed them the skill in the first place.
"If you want to farm Ice Element Stones, I'm sure it could make an incredible sword. Maybe even an Ice Imbued armor set... Or something unique."
I let my blade flicker.
"Mine took in quite a few fire stones to get to this point. Hopefully, I find another dungeon with fire stone drops again soon, the one broke in Sector 4 so I have nowhere to farm them."
She looks around the Dungeon then replies.
"I think that's a good idea. How much time do we have until we need to meet with Monk?"
"Well, he's expecting me at around noon. That gives us just under 6 hours to farm, unless we want to try and get a few hours of sleep in between and pick up this session tomorrow."
I let out a light laugh, realizing we've pulled an all-nighter.
Abby interjects.
"We can always use the Isolation Pods before we leave. All of us have really high mana control bases, so it's not like we need as much sleep as lower level people. An hour or two in the pods should rejuvenate us just fine. My restoration magic can take care of the rest."
Maria agrees.
"True, so we have 4 hours to farm. Maybe at this rate without your dungeon walker skill, I can get 1 or 2 more stones. It's not much if you say each item can hold up to half a dozen. If that's not enough, it's not like this Labyrinth is going anywhere anytime soon, I can keep farming until I get what I need."
I turn to the direction of the Boss room at the back of the dungeon, then look at Abby.
"True. Alright, so in the meantime, we should venture up to the next floor and set a few Dungeon Walker points for ease of access in the future."
I turn to Maria.
"We'll come down to check on the farming every hour or so for updates."
She glows light blue in response.
"Sounds like a plan."
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Author's Note:
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Thanks for reading:)
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