Lev walked out of the store with a single bracer for his right arm. It snugly hugged his wrist and arm halfway to the elbow with an earth mana converter built into it. The leathery material was not meant to handle attacks and was useful for enchanting but that didn't matter. It was going to be under two armors and if something got through those, Lev would happily sacrifice the bracer for a chance to save his limb. He also bought five healing potions for one gold each, just in case.

  Next stop was the merchants guild. It was situated close to the main gates and took nearly half an hour to get to. With his Perception pulled back to normal levels, that time passed in a blink.

  Inside, Lev was greeted by a hall less crowded than he expected. He walked up to the receptionist near the entrance. He belatedly realized something, making him change his question.

  "Hey, is there a bronze bids branch in windkeep?"

  The bored man gave him a single nod, "Go straight and then left from the fountain square."

  Lev thanked him and followed the directions. The bronze bids building was much the same, a small office building next to a large auction house. Entering, he was noticed by the woman manning the counter.

  [Worker - Level 147]

  "Welcome to bronze bids. I'm Skylar, How can I help you?" she greeted, eyeing his illusion armor.

  Lev summoned his membership card and handed it to her.

  "I see you're a regular member. Can I ask which branch you usually make use of?"

  "Runespires. I've got a bunch of cores that I wish to sell."

  She waved to the table. "Sure, let me see."

  Lev started summoning the cores slowly. More than a hundred spider cores came out before he took out the three matriarch cores. Skylar was already doing mental calculations when she paused.

  "That one is… rare. Can I inquire about the source?" she asked after seeing the condensed crystal.

  "I would like to keep that to myself," Lev politely refused.

  She nodded curtly. "These spider cores come out to one gold and fifty silver. The value is increased significantly because of your membership reducing our cut to almost nothing. The matriarch cores I can do for five golds. Troll commanders are rare, which increases their value quite a bit.

  "The cores themselves are decent but nowhere near as good as what the price suggests. I can do three golds for that one. These impure crystals are valued at only slightly more than the spider cores individually. One gold for the entire lot. Lastly, the condensed crystal. The rarity alone pushes its value very high. If you're a crafter, I will recommend keeping it."

  Hmm… Lev considered her words. I can just go and kill more commanders in the future, so selling it is whatever.

  "I would like to sell it. What would it be priced at?"

  "Nine golds is as high as I can go," Skylar mused. She looked at him as if expecting some haggling but Lev didn't care enough for another gold or two. His days of hunting for money were just starting.

  "Sure," he casually agreed, causing her eyes to show a hint of exasperation. Skylar slowly summoned gold coins from her ring. Twenty gold coins slowly clattered onto the table, fifty silver higher than the agreed price.

  Neither said a word about it as Lev stored the coins. He thanked her before taking his leave.

  Valuables now sold, I can commission a really strong bow. But at the same time, I want to evolve the general skill into something that isn't reliant on my bow. Definitely gonna hold back on getting a new bow unless the skill refuses to evolve after even my best efforts.

  He needed to regenerate his mana first, which would take nearly a full day. Seeing he had nothing to do, Lev headed to the park he had first sat down in.

  It was noticeably emptier. The suns were close to setting already, and people were leaving as he entered.

  Sitting down in the same corner as before, Lev settled in to watch his mana regenerate and loosed the hold on his Perception. The world instantly became noticeably slower, and so did his mana regeneration.

  That was fine by him. He could observe the soothing process for longer that way.

  ****

  Lev's meditation was interrupted after a few hours when he heard footsteps. The sound indicated that someone was heading his way.

  Opening his eyes, he saw several kids observing from the distance while a girl was nervously making her way toward him. She was no older than six or seven years old and froze in place when Lev looked directly at her.

  He wouldn't admit it out loud but seeing her so scared of him kind of hurt. Casually, Lev waved a hand and motioned for her to come sit next to him.

  She walked up to him timidly and just stood there, unsure of what to do. Lev took the lead to try and ease her nerves.

  "What's your name?"

  "L-Lily."

  "That's a sweet name," Lev replied with a smile audible in his words. "Are those your friends?" he nodded to the kids watching with bated breaths.

  Lily quietly nodded, clutching her shirt tightly.

  This isn't working, Lev thought with a mental sigh. Maybe giving her a reason to talk will let her ease up?

  "Why don't you sit down?"

  She sat down on the spot.

  "Is my mask scary?"

  "It is…" she said in a low voice.

  "Hmm, is it really? I thought it looked cool," Lev mused, scratching his armored cheek.

  "Cool?" she questioningly tilted her head.

  "Cool as in good or fashionable, you know? Something to scare monsters and people without actually looking bad."

  Her shoulders slumped a little as she giggled. "Why would you want to scare people? That's silly."

  "But silly is fun," Lev pointed out and leaned in conspiratorially. "Don't tell that to my teachers."

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  She nodded seriously too, as if it was some great secret to be protected. "Why are you here alone? It has been so long since you last moved. We wanted to tell you that night has already come but…"

  "Don't worry about that. I could tell."

  "How can you know through the armor?" she questioned, confusion evident on her face.

  Lev held up a finger and answered in a serious voice. "That's a secret. You should head home now, it is getting quite late."

  "It was nice to meet you," Lily said with a wave as she got up to leave. She was instantly bombarded by questions from her friends. Lev tuned them out and returned to his silent meditation.

  ****

  The first rays of sunshine woke him up from his trance. Lev found himself thoroughly refreshed, and he might've even fallen asleep once or twice. He marveled at he lack of any soreness or discomfort from sitting cross-legged for the entire night before thinking of his next steps.

  There isn't much to do except practice with Stargazer and slowly increase my class and skill levels. Windkeep is supposed to have a lot of waves too, which is what I wanted to participate in. No doubt the next ones will be worse because of me.

  Whatever plans the guild had to conquer the center of the plains, they were still years away at the minimum. Lev's crafting plans were all also locked behind the Master rank when his barriers would become permanent. So far, he hadn't needed to keep any constructs for long enough to hit the six hour time limit but that would probably change.

  Getting up, he dusted his armor before making his way to the hunters guild. Since the guild was planning a large-scale operation, it would not hurt to participate. Dungeon clearing was already going to be his focus for the next few months if things didn't go wrong.

  The hunters guild was as busy as ever as he entered. Lev hoped Hakim wouldn't show up behind him randomly. High level people were really good at that.

  There were four large counters for different ranks, and Lev approached one of the two for Adepts. He was quite far behind in the line, so he observed the hunters present to pass the time.

  Two teams stood out. One was really high level, with all five people over level 200. The second had four mages and a shield. The latter was fully dedicated to taunting and blocking attacks, which made sense with that composition. Lev just hoped at least one of them was an aura mage like the one from Alec's support squad. The team's prowess would shoot up severalfold with that addition.

  The man behind the counter looked pretty impatient, so Lev made it quick. "How can I properly participate in the whole dungeon clearing efforts?"

  "That depends on a lot of factors," came the quick reply.

  Lev handed him his gold badge. "I'm solo."

  "What type of dungeons are you willing to take on?"

  "Whichever is available below level 175," Lev felt several people perk up after hearing that. "Is there a list?"

  The man nodded. "There is. Give me a moment. Someone else will help you with this."

  Half a minute later, the man returned with a clerk who looked at Lev curiously. "Follow me."

  She led him to an office deeper inside the building, and Lev took a seat opposite to her.

  "Ruman tells me you are a solo dungeoneer?" Lev nodded. "There are several dangerous silver dungeons that require gold or platinum teams to clear reliably. Do you think you can clear the less dangerous of those?"

  Lev opened his mouth to reply when there was a knock on their door.

  Here we go again…

  Hakim entered shortly after, making the woman in front of him scramble to greet him. She stood up and bowed at the waist.

  "We greet the Exalted."

  Lev mimicked her. Hakim nodded once in acknowledgment and put a hand on Lev's shoulder, pushing him back down gently. The touch couldn't have been more awkward but Lev could tell what was going on.

  "How many dungeons have you cleared so far?" Hakim glanced at him.

  "Six, sir."

  "All solo?"

  "No sir, only 5. Four if the Runic Warlord's presence alone counts for a group."

  "Good enough," Hakim remarked and looked at the tense woman behind the table. "Give him directions to the mistcrawler dungeon as well as the underground golem dungeon."

  The woman gulped and hastily nodded. Satisfied, Hakim turned to Lev again. "Clear the golem dungeon three times. Do not hold back, they can kill even you easily. On your 10th dungeon, clear the mistcrawler dungeon as slowly as possible. That illusion armor will not hold a candle to their bladed arms, and your barrier armor will not do much better. Use your entire pool on every encounter if you have to. Dungeon instances last forever."

  This is definitely for my dungeoneer title, Lev realized, enlightened. He nodded to show that he understood both his task and the gravity of the situation.

  "I understand, sir."

  Hakim nodded again, the epitome of seriousness. "Come see me if any complications arise."

  With that, he marched out of the room with his ramrod gait and tense shoulders. Lev wondered if the man ever relaxed but it didn't seem like he did. Hakim's attempts at trying to be 'nicer' were also adorable. Lev would be caught dead before ever voicing that, though.

  "Uhm," the woman coughed to get his attention. "Please take a look at this map."

  Several minutes later, Lev was flying to the golem dungeon. It was a level 180 dungeon, meaning the boss would be level 200 or above. Dangerous as heck and perfect to tackle.

  The golems were incredibly durable, with only a slight vulnerability to blunt damage. Lev was going to take his sweet time wearing them down with his arrows, lances, Stargazer, and gauntlets. With his new earth mana converters, he could also increase the weight of his armor at a small cost.

  It was shaping up to be an interesting challenge. The directions took him to a clearly marked entrance to a cavern. Lev descended straight down and landed in front of the camp surrounding the portal.

  It was empty.

  I suppose that makes sense, Lev thought. The dungeon is cleared by a higher level team most of the time.

  Lev walked up to the lone guard observing his approach. Just from his aura alone, he could deduce that the guard was a Master and incredibly bored.

  [Warrior - ???]

  "Can I enter?" Lev politely asked. The man just waved a hand. Lev went in.

  The first thing that stood out was that there was no open sky above him. Lev found himself inside a cave that extended for hundreds of meters in front of him. The dark gray stone gave off an old aura of stability telling him that he was far underground. Everything was dimly illuminated by Monarch knows what. He wasn't going to complain.

  No golems in sight.

  Hakim had specifically warned him to take it slow. It would be stupid not to take his warning to heart. After making sure that the area surrounding the portal was truly safe, Lev made a chair and sat down.

  His most used durability rune only worked when there was no other rune present on the enchanted object. That was great for now since the rune was highly efficient and scalable, but it simply could not be put on the chains because of the surface area coverage requirement.

  To that end, Lev wanted to try something new and costly. Forming a long, thick linked chain, he started carving. Stone enhancement runes formed slowly on each link before a string of small connector runes joined them all in a large formation. Putting mana into it, Lev was prepared to wince but the formation turned out to be pretty efficient.

  Connector runes were ideal for mana transfer because of their jobless nature. They just existed to join different runes with varying levels of length and effects. The effects were minimal at best, usually used for general things like whether willpower was included or not.

  The enhancement ran through the entire length of the five meter long chain, covering every nook and cranny. Sherron had told him that the runes were not focused on raw durability but that wasn't what Lev was aiming for, to begin with. His shields, enchanted with the durability rune, were perfect for blocking attacks.

  What he wanted was to use the chains for attacking. To do that, a large barrier ball formed at one end of the chain. Light as it was, it wouldn't truly be useful in combat without earth mana imbuing it.

  The difference between Infusion and Imbuement was the utilization of different mana types. Infusion only stored the different mana types to be released later. The storage object received some passive effects from their presence, which Lev paired with all his projectiles.

  Imbuement meant to expend mana and affect the storage container instead of simply storing mana. Like running an enchantment, materials could be directly imbued with different mana types.

  The difference was like active and passive skills. One had to be actively applied.

  Till now, Lev had no use for imbuement. Sure, fire imbuement would make his barriers very hot to the touch but an explosion from infusion was much more useful. Same for lightning mana. Instead of electrocuting everything his barriers touched, directly attacking with a large amount of lightning mana was much more effective.

  Things changed with earth mana in the equation. Imbuing it increased both the durability and weight of his barriers with some negative effects. Edges became a little duller, and manipulating barriers also became much harder.

  The latter was the main reason he had held off for so long. With his mana manipulation evolving and his class giving a direct boost to that aspect as well, Lev expected adding two heavy chains to his usual arsenal to be manageable.

  Difficult, but manageable.