Hera got up from her bed very carefully. She didn't want to wake Silah, who was sleeping next to her. For a dwarf that was used to the sound of hammering, she had a surprisingly light sleep. Hera picked a wool robe she got as a gift the previous night and put it on. She also put on the cloud wool slippers that were a gift from Fethy before sneaking out of the bedroom.

"Morning, birthday girl!" Blue was in the kitchen making some breakfast for the three of them.

"Shush, Silah is still sleeping. And my birthday was yesterday," Hera replied.

"You are the birthday girl until there is no more cake. Those are your girlfriend's rules, not mine," Blue flipped the pancakes.

"The difference is that you loved being called that for an entire week. You know how I feel about birthdays," Hera rolled her eyes before sitting at the table.

"It's not up to me, and you know it. Besides, are you going to tell Silah that? After she kicked out the council yesterday?" Blue asked.

Hera's birthday ended up being a city-wide event. Not that Blue's was any different. Since both were close to 30 days apart and at the end of the month, King Rutigan dedicated the festival for them. The party started early morning, and the entire town took part. Luckily, after Blue received gifts from literally everyone in the city, Hera convinced the king that it was too much and that the best way to give her a gift was to make something that everyone could enjoy. Still, the council, their dungeon team, and Risli all gave her presents at some point. The guards and Risli seemed to understand that Hera wasn't someone who liked big parties, but the king and Fethy didn't. If it wasn't for Silah kicking them out of Hera's house the previous night, it was very likely that they would still be around.

Most presents were clothes or trinkets that didn't match Hera that well, despite being cute and well made. Not that she was ungrateful, but only three gifts made her truly excited. Blue got her an enchanted necklace that had the skill to clean her armor. It couldn't do a deep cleaning, but she could trigger it once per hour rid of most blood and grime from her gear, as long as it was still fresh. Second, Risli gave her a book of medicine, with a lot of the information she had gathered during her years. Lastly, was Silah's gift. She made her a new handaxe to work in a pair with the one Hera already had. During the past months, Hera had focused on her handaxe combat. Ever since her first visit to the Sky Ruler's nest, she realized that despite how helpful the chakram was when facing a small monster, it wouldn't do so well when fighting a big one. This was mostly because of the force of impact. Even with the mana reinforcement, the power behind each attack would never be as strong as her handaxe.

It's been over eight months since Hera and Blue arrived in this room, and they were already used to life in the city, but their desire to return to their home never changed. That showed in how hard they worked to level up. Now, they were both level 16 already, and several of their skills had ranked up. Not to mention their brand new skills and spells.

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Hera Kingsley -- Role: Explorer Level: 16

Stats:

Strength: 46 Endurance: 46

Agility: 46 Charisma: 46

Intelligence: 46 Luck: 46

Mana: 3597/3597

Remaining attribute points: 3

Skills:

Passive:

Exponential Growth

Observe 2

Treasure Map

Handaxe Combat 3, Chakram Combat 2, Wire Trap Style 2, Subtle Strike 3

Dodge 2, Run 2, Improved Stamina 4, Flee 1, Jump 2

Mana Recovery 4

Improved Regeneration 3

Ailment Mastery 2

Poison Mastery 1

Wind resistance 2

Mana sensitivity 2

Nature connection 1

Active:

All In 2

Inspect 2

Hide 3, Sneak Attack 3

Local Guide

Weapon Maintenance 2, Weapons Rebalance 2

Etching 2

Medical Reference 2

Green Thumb 1

Chain of Command 1

Role Skills:

Explorer's Assassinate

Explorer's Map

Hunter's Catalogue

Explorer's Hunt

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Hera ranked up most of her skills, and the first big change was the [Inspect] skill. Now, she could see more detailed information about things, and even her own status showed the rank of her skills. She wasn't sure why some of her skills didn't get any rank indicator, but it could mean that those skills couldn't be ranked up in regular ways. She also got a resistance that reduced the amount of damage that she took from the wind element. Despite being a [Wind Resistance] skill, it could lessen attacks from elements related to wind. For instance, the cloud spells that the griffons used were a tiny bit weaker. The [Poison Mastery] skill just increased the power of her poisons and the likelihood of poisoning her target. The skill also mentioned she had access to a wider variety of toxins, but Hera had yet to understand how that worked. Finally, [Nature Connection] and [Green Thumb] were skills she got while helping Risli to grow herbs and other flowers to use in potions. The first gave her a sort of sixth sense to understand the surrounding nature, while the latter could make plants grow faster when she cared for them. It was unfortunate that the skill was an active effect. Still, it was a persistent buff that lasted a few minutes, giving enough time for her to use it on most plants inside the new greenhouse made with the small mana core they found during the first fight against the Starved Ruler.

[Jump] was very self-explanatory, allowing her to go higher or cover more ground when jumping. It helped a lot during the fights against the griffons. [Chain of Command] was something very unexpected. Once upon a time, Naka had the same skill. It allowed her voice to travel farther when she wanted to convey something to her party. The only issue was that it only worked when she was considered the group's strategist or leader. However, suppose she kept taking a leading role in her teams. In that case, the skill could evolve into something called [Commander's Orders] that would help with communication and give a buff when someone follows her instructions. That was Naka's current skill. Her [All In] also ranked up. Now, she could use it every 24 hours, and she would stay in a weakened state for only 4 hours. The attribute in question would go to a whopping 69 points when using that skill, and that was before Pyrrick's buffs. With them, she could have a single attribute going past the 100 mark. Even with all that, it was still a last resort or a finishing move type of deal.

[Mana sensitivity] was something that she got, thanks to Yarnball. The Danger Sense of her relic would not just make the object vibrate her body, but even her mana. That skill allowed her to increase her [Mana Regeneration] to rank 4 and make Hera notice when spells were cast. It also helped her understand how she cast spells herself and gave her some new insight into shaping her mana to create unique effects.

For a while, Hera just started making every spell she could think of. She began by copying Blue's static buff and then got a few of Lija's stone shaping spells and even some of Risli's healing magic. None of the copies were as strong as the original, but that was only due to the lack of experience Hera had with them. After that, she experimented with other types of magic. She managed to create a rotating cloud barrier like the one that appeared in the griffons. It was nowhere as strong as their's, but it could stop some spells depending on how much mana she used. Things were much harder when creating truly unique spells that weren't based on something she had already seen. During these months, Hera only made 2 original spells.

The first was called Pollen Field. It created an area filled with small yellow particles that caused anyone inside to sneeze as if they had allergies. Unfortunately, she couldn't make the spell target only a specific creature inside it, but at least she wasn't affected by it. The other spell was called Solar Flare. She could make one of her lights pulse with intense ultraviolet light that could cause something similar to a sunburn and reduce the target's defenses. Hera had more control over this spell and could direct the flash to a specific area.

Blue also became very dedicated to increasing her mana and mana-related skills. The legacy required mana to do almost anything. After asking Totrak and Pyrrick about ways to quickly increase their mana, the dwarves taught them a method that could only work when the people involved either had the same type of mana or didn't have their mana locked into a single element. They had to circle the mana they had inside their bodies through each other. By using this new technique, the speed at which their mana increased soared. However, it was very taxing to do that. Hera and Blue could, at most, stay for one hour doing that before tapping out for the day. Still, as they got used to the process, it became a bonding moment. As long as they didn't lose their focus, they could even talk while circling their mana.

Another thing they did during these months was to head to the Sky Ruler nest a few more times. They wanted not just to gather more information about the monster they would face, but also to find other legacy pieces for Blue. In four attempts, they found one single legacy piece that increased the power of the controller's new abilities, which included creating barriers and phantom limbs that could help her grapple her enemies. One very unexpected result of the second piece was that Blue could use a cloud barrier on the griffons that would cancel out some of the effects of the original barrier. However, it was far from completely nullifying the effects. The spell required a lot of mana, but with it, even Lija or Sevaris could deal some damage when attacking the griffons. It took them quite a few strikes to kill one of the monsters, but they could do so. However, when Naka was attacking, things were different. Even with the original barrier canceling most of the power behind her swings, what was left was still more than enough to kill the Scavenger Ruler in a single strike. Because of that, Blue avoided using that nullification in most runs, leaving only one or two monsters for the dwarves to attack.

As Hera and Blue talked quietly and ate their leftover breakfast, Silah came out of the room wearing a dragon onesie. That was a gift that Hera ordered a few months ago. Among the stories about the other rooms, Silah discovered a fascination with dragons and other large reptiles. The blacksmith wanted to work with their leather and even have one as a pet. Hera had already made a mental note to show some dinosaur movies to her girlfriend as soon as she could.

"Morning sleepyhead," Blue placed another plate of pancakes on the table.

"Morning, am I late?" Silah asked, still rubbing her eyes.

"Nope, and don't worry. It's not like today can happen without us," Blue chuckled.

"True, but I don't want to leave people waiting around for too long," Hera added.

"Oh yeah, that would be bad, but it's still morning. We are only going there in the afternoon, right?" Blue asked.

"Yeah, we are fine, don't even worry about it. But if we can, I still want to drop by the dungeon and test that thing. I figured out that spell in the middle of the night when I went to the bathroom."

"Is that why there was sand all over the sink? Anyway, we should finish this and go then. I want to know if that is going to work too," Blue nodded.

"My bad, but yeah, I was thinking about testing with the pollen too, just to be sure," Hera said.

"So, you two are worried." Silah sat at the table with a surprised expression.

"Of course! We are going to fight a giant bird monster that can create storms. How can we not be worried?" Blue bit down on a pancake.

"Well, you two like near-death experiences. I thought you would enjoy this," Silah laughed as she put syrup on her plate.

"You are not wrong, but it's not like we chase those experiences. We just enjoy them when they come," Hera replied.

"Says the one who asked a bunch of people to attack her with spells," Silah rolled her eyes.

"Hey, that was a perfectly valid way to test the resistance skill. And I stick by what I said. That would be a great way to increase its rank, and everyone involved would be training. No one loses in that situation."

"You slammed against a wall so hard that you almost broke your ribs!"

"But I didn't, and if my wind resistance was stronger, I would feel much more at ease."

"Woman, if I ever see you doing that again, the Sky Ruler is going to be the least of your problems," Silah stared Hera dead in the eye.

"Yes, honey," Hera gave up. She knew that there was no way to win that discussion.

"Can you please stop with the old married couple's routine? Now, who wants cake?" Blue picked up a few very large slices of cake from the previous night.

"How can you still eat that? You must have eaten 1kg of that yesterday," Silah gasped.

"It's just that good. I really miss chocolate, but this vanilla strawberry thing is out of this world," Blue chomped down on one slice.

Hera just laughed. She was very familiar with Blue's bottomless stomach. She looked around the room. This was exactly what she needed today. A nice fun breakfast before heading up to the nest. It was finally time to kill the sky ruler.