Blacksmith vs. the System

Which, incidentally, destroyed their shells as well. Their mana puffed into existence for a moment, only to be drawn in by the dungeon in quick order. "Thanks for the assist, but don\'t forget. We need to preserve the shells for mana recovery."

"Right," she said with the slightest blush. "You\'re right. I\'ll be more careful."

"By the way, how much mana do you have to throw around like that, if it won\'t be a private question," I asked, surprised by the ease she had done so.

"It is," she said, but she continued to smile, so I wasn\'t scared of her reaction. "Just above forty thousand."

"W-what?" I gasped. Considering she was level hundred, I was expecting a lot. But, forty thousand…

"My class gives me ten Essence each level, which is enough to raise the number in the first place. Then, there is an item to increase my Essence further, and another to enhance mana points that it grants by every level… Combined, it goes up significantly."

"Impressive," I said, though I couldn\'t help but feel jealous. It was a scary amount of mana. No wonder she didn\'t need to stop to replenish her mana. "So, I\'m sure I can leave you here safely for a second," I said. She nodded, and I disappeared to the fourth floor to get another sapling.

Once I returned, setting up the hydroponic garden took only seconds, the process getting more and more familiar.

"So, you have Nurture as well," she commented. "I can arrange for a skill removal stone if you want. We have several in storage, and now that you have thousands of Farmers to call upon, it\'s a waste of skill a point."

"It comes in handy too often," I said.

"Are you sure? It\'s … Nurture," she said, her disdain clear.

"Once we finished with the dungeon," I said, deflecting the request. I had no intention of doing so, as Nurture was a very useful tool, but I didn\'t want to spend time convincing her of that. At least, not here.

"Good," she said. "So, does the boss monster really just come rushing in," she said.

"Yes. Should I assume it\'s not common?"

"Might be," she said. "But, the dungeons I operate in are usually split into two categories. Either the boss monsters are valuable enough that they are hunted the moment they are born, with the various teams competing for it, or the last thing you want is to come across them."

"Fair point," I said even as I finished setting the web of trees, including the steam-powered crusher, and piled it with mana. Adding a secondary mana exhaust that poured pure mana toward her while pushing the more tainted portion to the trees was easy.

She closed her eyes as the mana flow hit her, only to open them back again, surprised. "The mana … it\'s pure," she gasped.

"Well, yeah. I have a filtering mechanism there to separate the two portions. It\'s not that hard."

"Really? There are wards capable of doing that, but they are rare and expensive. This could be a game changer for dungeon exploration."

"As long as we find a way to spread it around without accompanying assassination attempts," I said.

"Good point," she said, and focused on absorbing the mana with enough speed to shock me. A rough calculation told me that it would take less than five minutes for her to refill her mana reserves completely, and that was with her taking in every drop of mana the crusher produced.

Her true limit, I had no idea, and that was with her yet to pass the level hundred barrier … which was supposed to improve her abilities in a material manner.

It was a good realization, snapping my growing bubble of arrogance. I had improved a lot and gained some impressive victories, but it wouldn\'t do well to forget that all of those victories came from situations I could manipulate to my benefit.

Someone like Maria could still kill a hundred of me with a spell in an open field of battle. And, from the speed with which she devoured mana, it seemed like that one spell wouldn\'t be her limit.

I busied myself with adding more trees to the hydroponic garden, distracting myself from the sudden sense of inferiority. It wasn\'t exactly fair, as not only did my class have very significant drawbacks when it came to combat potential, but I was also significantly behind her in terms of schedule.

I made sure not to let her realize any of it, as my personal crisis was hardly her problem. "The first boss is almost here," I called her soon. "Should we discuss how to deal with it?"

"No need. Just give me a signal when it\'s five seconds away, and leave the rest to me."

I wanted to argue against it, as it seemed silly to fight a battle without a plan in place, but the way she told me that gave me pause. She seemed confident enough.

I decided to hold my complaints to myself, as there were two probabilities. First, her spell would put us in a dangerous position, but with several layers of trees around us, it would be easy to compensate. The second, she actually knew what she was doing.

Her confidence didn\'t fill me with confidence, but I chose to trust her expertise.

"Now," I said once the gargantuan beast approached the line with sufficient speed, and the mana started to gather in front of her. It was bright enough to signal that it was going to be a strong spell, but its structure was packed tight. I didn\'t have the experience to measure the amount of mana she was putting into her casting.

But, it should be enough to wound the beast significantly. I still wished that we discussed tactics beforehand, but I could also see where she was coming from in terms of confidence. I prepared to rush once her spell went off, focusing on distracting the boss while she cast another spell.

… Only for it to turn unnecessary when the gargantuan monster had collapsed against the edge of the tree line, a giant flaming spear skewering through its center.

One spell. It was all it took to kill the giant beast, while I had to whittle at it slowly for an hour.

"How was that?" Maria said as she turned to me proudly.

"Amazing," I said, which was certainly not an exaggeration. "What was it?"

"My strongest single-target spell," she said. "Too bad it takes almost half of my mana to cast it once here," she said as she moved near, and then absorbed the crystal that the dungeon boss had turned into.

While I wanted to watch her, gaping in shock, I had more important things to do. Like hunting the swarm that it brought along to supply the crusher. "So, you can take it down with one spell," I said. "I\'m impressed."

"Yes," she said, then frowned. "Unfortunately, it\'s hard to use against smaller targets. It\'s slow to cast, expensive in terms of mana, and its range is not particularly impressive."

"It\'s still a hundred times more powerful than the siege weapons," I said.

She waved her hand. "Yeah, siege weapons are hardly worth using anywhere except when defending towns against monster hordes. Nothing that can rival a proper mage."

I would have argued if it came from anyone else, but as someone who might match the devastation potential of a ship full of napalm, she had a right to make that comment.

"If the mage in question is you, certainly," I said, which earned a big smile.

"Exactly," she said. "Now, it has been a while since we had a proper game. Why don\'t we have one while waiting for the next boss? I missed playing with you. You know how to make the games interesting."

"Knight C3," I called in response even as I continued hunting the beasts. Luckily, at this point, even using mana attacks was mostly automatic, allowing me to focus on the game even as I got piled on by the leftover swarm.

Too bad my full focus only meant a slower descent to inevitable defeat. Not that I was complaining, as it was far better than focusing on the fight. Nothing except the boss monsters came close to providing me with a challenge … and with bosses no longer a problem with her attacks, even that was not the case anymore.

So, trying to put up an impossible defense against her attacks seemed like a good way to pass the time as I expanded my little hydroponic forest, to see just how many boss monsters I could pull to fight us.