Dungeons were, by all means, dangerous places. But sometimes, the risk was equally worth the reward. As was the case for the cave of myths.
"I don't know what changed but we are definitely making bank!" An adventurer exclaimed as she and her party entered the second layer. This was where all the goodies were hidden away either in a destitute corner of the dungeon or behind intricate puzzles.
This party was one of the first to discover the phenomenon Ed had created and they certainly wouldn't be the last.
Arbor Town had been busy when the news of the Mana Forge Potion first got out, much of that clout had yet to fade. Some adventurers would visit it in passing like, a deadly tourism location. Others might decide that Arbor town was not a bad town and remained.
Either way, the news was getting around. Even if someone intended to keep it hidden to monopolize the knowledge as much as possible, it was well, impossible. There was always someone to benefit from revealing the information.
Currently, one such man was taking it easy.
Back at Samuel's quaint home, in its backyard, the part-time father was teaching his son some new swordsmanship techniques.
"Hi-yah! Block this!" Sammy screamed in cutesy voice, it made it hard for Samuel to take it seriously. So as the wooden sword lunged towards Samuel, he merely smiled making no effort to avoid the strike.
The wooden blade slid through the air and landed on Samuel's body leaving nothing… because it never touched him. Not even a speck of dust landed on the man's body.
"This is Mana Relay1" Samuel explained. He had named his technique of passing information to the elements through mana as such. As for the reason he brought it up…
"You are going to be learning it" Samuel said ruffling his son's hair. Sammy couldn't help but pout inwardly. Not outwardly. How could a swordsman show such weakness before an opponent?
"...WAIT! I am?!?" The young boy who had been momentarily immersed in his thoughts exclaimed in surprise. This was a good surprise though, he was grinning from ear to ear.
"For sure" Samuel said holding back a chuckle.
"Yeah! I'm going to beat you!" Sammy said in response with a foolish grin clearly already imagining such a future.
"Reel in that expression, a warrior can't get distracted in the middle of combat" Samuel crouched to look at his son in the eye and said.
Sammy's eyes widened and he quickly straightened his body.
"I- I wasn't distracted! ...I was just erm not paying attention" Sammy said to his father who couldn't help but worry. It wasn't possible that his son inherited his bad habits, right?
"Oh wow, it looks like he has really taken after you" His wife who had come by to offer refreshments said affirming Samuel's worries.
He wanted to refute but he knew quite well who wore the pants in the relationship.
"Mom! I want toast!" Sammy dropped his weapon and asked.
"Sure sweetie" The mother promptly replied with a wide smile as she handed him some lemonade.
...Sammy wore the pants in the relationship. But after a while, the man of the house had enough for the day and fell asleep on the grass.
This left the two adults time for themselves but this time was spent in silence. They both sat next to each other on the ground took in the peaceful breeze while watching the small chest of Sammy heave up and down.
The boy had a satisfied smile that was not tarnished by the bread crumbs that adorned it. It wasn't until much later that Samuel had seen enough of this.
"Are you going to work?" His wife asked somewhat worried.
"Yeah" Samuel replied. He was sparing his mornings for his son but that meant he had to stay working until much later.
"Alright, try not to stress yourself out" She said in response causing Samuel to smile and nod before leaving.
After passing on the information of the dungeon through official channels, the number of adventurers in Arbor Town was bound to see a surge once more. Signs of this happening could already be seen in the vicinity.
Truth be told, Samuel was a little regretful. He was ruining the peace of the town by taking these measures. Yet on the flip side, property prices would certainly rise.
"Hah…" Such a thing was the least of his worries. His mind was more burdened by the undercurrents made by the throne.
***
The situation in the crypt was unknown to Ed so he didn't dally for too long. After storing the magical cart in his storeroom, he quickly retreated towards Survivor's outpost. That had been the initial intent of his journey after all. The equipment of Kiano and Mons was just a side benefit.
Ed was fortunate enough to make it there uninterrupted. The sight that welcomed him however was nothing short of disappointing.
'Sigh… my armament skeletons' Creating such freaks was no easy task. It required sacrificing some weapons to form skeletons.
'Fortunately, I only used some cheap weapons' Ed was afraid of using anything more expensive in case they proved useful later on. But now wasn't the time for that.
'Survivor' Ed called for the earthen mage, Survivor.
The anti-skeleton came to greet him at the portcullis and he didn't do so alone. He had two other armament skeletons.
W E L C O M E
Letters of earth then appeared. It was Survivor's greeting. The armament skeletons also did not stand idle. They expressed their intention to help by opening up the portcullis for Ed.
In no time at all, the portcullis was open and Ed was more formally welcomed in by the group.
'Please explain' Ed transmitted to Survivor unprompted Yet, it seemed Survivor didn't need any context as they immediately put themselves to work.
They conjured up letters that Ed read quickly and would occasionally nod to. He was nodding in understanding of course as he could now summarize the situation. To sum within a single sentence, it was a series of unfortunate events for the knights.
First, the humans were unlucky enough to pass past the skeleton outpost alerting Survivor. Secondly, the battlefield was the now destroyed safe room which had a different elevation and served to divide them. Finally, some sort of misconception might have occurred causing one of them to give a wrong order.
'Whatever the reason, it worked out for me' Kiano had apparently given orders for the others to scram and it had worked in a way. Assuming Kiano was afraid of them being hurt by him, they were indeed able to flee unscathed.
Yet, the fear of Kiano was irrational. Survivor and the armament skeletons were not a big enough threat and he had not been present. If he had realized this Ed would have never got to them in time.
Indeed, it was a string of misfortunate situations for the knights but a boon for Ed.
'You did good' Ed transmitted to Survivor who knelt solemnly. The tactics of the skeleton showed uncanny wisdom considering it being dead. Ed had to praise it. Not just that, he also had to reward it accordingly.
Ed grabbed the consciousness and body of Survivor planning to give him some new skills. Not only that but Ed also needed to return to the system space to create new subordinates.
'Maybe I won't be so cheap on the weapon' He had plenty of shrooms to refine into swords, axes, maces, etc. The process for these things was rather difficult without the proper tools but whatever Ed made could not be graded too poorly by the system, right?
Once inside the system space, Ed made sure to head towards the spirit worker and observe its work. It just had to place skeleton bones on the conveyor so it wasn't doing too badly. It wouldn't reflect very well on the system if the worker couldn't do this much though.
Every second, the spirit worker would continue to place objects on the conveyor to be led away into the forge room. By now, the spirit smith was bound to have made plenty of anti-skeletons assuming he didn't run out of materials.
Without further ado, Ed decided to head over to the forge. He did not forget to take the parts of Survivor there. He placed them on the conveyor however for the luxury of it. He paid for the entire thing he was going to use the entire thing if at all possible.
In the forge room, piles upon pules of bone could be seen littering everything.
'Eugh, don't tell me I have to set up a return conveyor' It would be convenient but his consciousnesses! Ed was forced to slowly gather the metallic bone piles and drop them off into the real world for later assembly.
Soon enough the forge room was nice and tidy and Ed was able to toss the pieces of Survivor for processing.
'My options are limited' Survivor was a mage meaning that having him incorporate a weapon would be pointless. Putting in another magic crystal might strain the body too…
While Survivor was called Survivor it didn't mean it would always survive. Testing something so highly volatile was therefore ruled off.
After some much deliberation, Ed finally managed to settle on a decent idea. Runes.
The magic cart used runes to move and had used the runes to make arrays. While the profession of enchanting weapons and gears had some differences from making arrays, much of the knowledge was transferable.
'Yes, this ought to work' Since bone weapons and equipment could be enchanted, so could the bones of skeletons. He had even seen it on the skin of orcs before.