"Stay safe," I told Cluma, giving her a hug outside the Serpent Isle dungeon.

"Of course. I'm not you!" she exclaimed with a pout, before laughing, vanishing and running into the dungeon.

It was a pity I couldn't track her; I'd have let her take a finger with her, but that might prevent it being considered a solo run. I'd promised to wait in this encampment for her instead, an offer which (mostly) had nothing to do with the way I was currently missing my eyebrows, and didn't want to be seen in Dawnhold. Thankfully, my armour had protected the rest of my hair.

My eyes themselves hadn't been in great condition, either, earning me a level of [Regeneration] as they grew back. Cluma, being more sensible than me, had turned her back to the grenade when it went off, saving her from any damage.

After that interesting experiment at the institute, and once I'd pacified Cluma after accidentally injuring myself again—an act that didn't even grant me more soul points from [Test Subject]—we'd tried it on the actual hydra. The results were impressive, with a couple of the devices being enough to immobilise it, devastating the heads. A third one finished it off before it had a chance to regenerate.

That meant Cluma was ready for her solo dungeon run. I was surprised she wanted to attempt it in the middle of mating season, but she seemed convinced that since it hadn't affected her thus far, she was safe for the entire thing. Plus, she was very excited about her next class change.

I was less sanguine about being stuck in the delvers' camp during mating season. It wasn't as if the beastkin working here went elsewhere for it, and no-one had individual homes, so it was far more in-your-face than normal. Walking any distance away from the town was risky, as was extending my [Mana Sight] further than I could see. I ended up camping out in the smithy instead, helping out the guy who ran the place in exchange for using his equipment to continue my experimentation around using exploding mana-batteries to forge mana materials.

A spherical battery inscribed into the shell of a steel bead produced mana-reinforced steel on my first attempt. I managed adamantite by putting a durability enchantment on the entire thing, enlarging it and wrapping it in dungeon stone to contain the produced mana. Admittedly, it only produced a tiny amount, so this wasn't a viable method of production, but the fact I could do it at all was cool. I'd considered a shell of mana stone for the grenade, and, as expected, I hadn't been able to get any sort of good containment, but any increase to the pressure was useful.

ding

Skill [Advanced Runecrafting] advanced to level 4

I was also getting some serious use out of my new runecrafting skill. The next time I made grenades, they'd be even better.

Or I could ask Grover to make some. The result would assuredly one-shot the hydra, but I didn't think I'd want to be on the same continent as one without a fire resistance enchantment on my armour.

That didn't mean I had nothing I wanted from Grover. I knew he had platinum available, given that we'd tried to saturate it in the past. We'd never managed it, even with the aid of Darren and high rank mages. I'd be willing to bet Bruleg could do it, but none of the dragons had ever agreed to take part in anything the institute did, despite the way Serlv went to them for help over the rifts.

Thus, trusting I could leave Serpent Isle for an hour without Cluma completing the dungeon on her second day, I teleported back to Dawnhold and rushed to the institute. Grover was once again out the back, where an engine was running. It sounded awfully clunky, but it hadn't exploded.

Not that I intended to risk getting close to it. I wasn't in my armour, and losing my eyebrows had been bad enough.

"Peter!" Grover grunted. "The devices you made were very impressive. If I didn't know better, I would never have believed you only had [Advanced Runecrafting]. Given how few components of mana-circuitry you should be able to fashion at your level, the detonator was inspired."

I preened at the praise. This crafting business wasn't bad. In another life—one in which Erryn hadn't messed around with me—maybe I would have ended up on this route instead of delving. Although then I'd have been unlikely to get [Versatile Crafter], and hence no [Artisan].

"Out of interest, how much better could you have done?"

Grover stroked his beard as he pondered. "There's the weight of skills, obviously. The increased quality rating on the enchantment, mana-circuitry and fire crystal would have combined to improve matters, but not by as much as you might expect. You worked around the fragility of the crystal by pushing mana into it as hard as possible before it broke, but that method has limits. You wouldn't be able to push much harder before the crystal shattered from mana pressure alone, before it even had a chance to convert anything. If I was building a similar device, I'd use an array of fire crystals to spread the load. You could also have built the gate to break down at a controlled mana pressure, rather than your two-stage release. It would have been more accurate, so you could have let the battery fill closer to capacity before detonation."

Obvious upgrades, but additional crystals wouldn't do anything to reduce the materials cost.

"Interesting advice. Maybe I'll give it a go the next time we get stuck on a final boss."

Grover snorted. "I'm no expert on delving, but even I can see how abnormal you are. It's supposed to be a job, not a challenge or a race. Anyway, I doubt you turned up just to ask that. What's up this time?"

"I was hoping to borrow some platinum."

Grover narrowed his eyes. "That's expensive stuff. Only ten floors above mythril in a dungeon. There's not much of it that comes out. What do you want it for?"

"I want to try saturating it with mana."

"We've had entire teams of mages try that with no success."

"I wasn't intending to use mana control. I had another idea."

"And you don't want to just tell me?"

"I will once I've tried, but trying it myself should earn me skill and class levels."

"True. But I'm sorry, lad. I can't loan out a platinum ingot."

"I don't need an entire ingot. A small bead will do. Ten grams or so."

He gave his beard another massage as he thought. "Yes, I can spare that much, but even if you successfully convert it, you won't produce a useable amount of whatever the result is."

"No, but it'll prove platinum can be converted, and hopefully produce enough of the stuff for you to analyse its properties and decide if it's worth pursuing."

"Aye, true enough. Very well, let me grab you some."

I expected him to head for his workshop or a storeroom, but instead he reached into a pocket, pulling a full ten-kilo ingot out of it that was far larger than the space it emerged from. He tapped the end, from which a small chip broke off—presumably having hit it with [Cut Metal] or some higher rank metal manipulation skill—and handed it over.

"Cheers. I'll be back to let you know how it went in a couple of hours."

Cluma, thankfully, hadn't turned up while I'd been away, and so I set about building another mana-bomb. I forged the platinum into a sphere, then constructed a steel shell around it, inscribed with the most spherically symmetric mana-battery I could manage. To that I stuck chips of dungeon stone, making the best shell I could. Then I buried it, flooded it with mana until it overcharged, leaving another small pit in the ground as the explosion blasted soil into the air, and dug out the result.

Hihi'irokane Fragment (Rank 5)

Weight: 14 grams

ding

Skill [Advanced Smithing] advanced to level 3

Skill [Advanced Runecrafting] advanced to level 5

Skill [Expert Mana Control] advanced to level 18

Skill [Eye of Judgement] advanced to level 3

Class [Artisan] advanced to level 3

A rank five material! Even orichalcum was only rank four. This was on the same level as adamantite, and manufacturing even that tiny amount had given me more skill levels than the flame grenades!

None of my skills provided any knowledge as to what hihi'irokane was, but that was equally true of orichalcum. I turned the chip over to Grover instead, who literally dropped the engine he was carrying—not caring in the slightest when it smashed into the ground or the fact he was in the middle of a corridor—grabbed the tiny chip from me, ran away and shut himself in his workshop. Hopefully, he'd have interesting news by the time Cluma returned.

It was a pity I couldn't repeat the same stunt to produce new affinity metals. My own affinities made no difference to the crystals I could produce, but all the basic affinities had rank four versions produced already, and the affinities that didn't, such as my own space and time, didn't have crystals that produced affinity mana. Nevertheless, I occupied my time waiting for Cluma by using fire crystals trying to produce a rank five version of ignitite.

And, half a week after she entered...

"Oof!" I exclaimed as I was tackled from behind.

"Appraise me!" came a disembodied voice that seemed to turn up in my head without taking the conventional route through my ears.

"Cluma?" I tried, the sensation of arms wrapped around me and someone clinging to my back not matching up with any of my other senses. Even active [Mana Sight] utilising my newly maxed out [Expert Mana Control] showed nothing but empty air. I flickered [Soul Perception], getting a glimpse of a soul behind me, but even that was blurry and diffuse.

"Who else?" giggled the disembodied voice. It was weird. I could hear her clearly, but there was no positional information whatsoever. It was if her voice was sounding from everywhere at once. She could talk without giving away her position. "Well? Are you going to appraise me? Or maybe you can't."

"No need to sound so smug," I muttered, flickering [Soul Perception] again and using it to target her with [Eye of Judgement].

Name: Cluma

Species: Beastkin (cat-sìth)

Age: 14

Class: Shrouded Reaper (Level 1/64)

Class History: [Commoner 10] [Apprentice Fighter 10] [Scout 20] [Apprentice Mage 10] [Darkness Mage 13]

Soul Points: 3

Health: 104/104

Stamina: 174/174

Mana: 150/150

Strength: 39(+12)

Dexterity: 52(+12)

Endurance: 41(+12)

Intelligence: 33(+12)

Wisdom: 35(+12)

Charisma: 41(+12)

Rank 1 Artes: [Backstab 10] [Armour Break 10] [Rapid Shot 10] [Piercing Shot 10]

Rank 2 Artes: [Snap Thrust 10] [Critical Strike 10]

Rank 3 Artes: [Assassinate 1]

Rank 1 Spells: [Minor Harm 10] [Minor Drain 6] [Weaken Light 2] [Darklight 4]

Rank 2 Spells: [Darken Senses 6] [Orb of Darkness 3] [Extinguish Light 2]

Rank 3 Spells: [Shroud 1] [Shadow Strike 1]

Rank 1 Skills: [Basic Cooking 10] [Weapon Proficiency: Dagger 10] [Inspection 10] [Concealment 10] [Meditation 10] [Enlarged Mana Pool 10] [Hunting 10] [Dismantling 10] [Weapon Proficiency: Bow 10] [Weapon Style: Dual Wielding 10] [Privacy 10] [Danger Sense 10] [Mana Control 6] [Mana Finesse 3] [Enlarged Health Pool 2] [Accelerated Healing 3] [Language: Common 10] [Language: English 5]

Rank 2 Skills: [Threat Perception 10] [Monster Perception 10] [Trap Perception 10] [Mana Perception 6]

Rank 3 Skills: [Non-detection 1]

Traits: [Hyperactive] [Acrobatic] [Invisible Terror] [Devoted Tease] [Magical Beast]

Titles: [Jack of All Trades] [Athlete] [Proficient Delver] [Victorious Underdog 2] [Magician] [Durable]

Status Conditions: [Fertility loss 9150721]

Attuned Affinities: [Darkness] [Death]

Rank 2 Available Classes: [Cook] [Monk] [Gatherer] [Dismantler] [Warrior] [Ranger] [Thaumaturgist] [Death Mage] [Spellsword]

Rank 3 Available Classes: [Silent Sniper] [Spy] [Darkness High Mage]

Rank 4 Available Classes: [Invisible Death]

Rank 3 Available Artes: [Unerring Throw]

Rank 1 Available Skills: [Basic Farming] [Enlarged Stamina Pool] [Foraging] [Basic Tailoring] [Basic Carpentry] [Basic Smithing] [Weapon Proficiency: Unarmed] [Weapon Proficiency: Dagger] [Weapon Proficiency: Sword] [Weapon Proficiency: Heavy Sword] [Weapon Proficiency: Axe] [Weapon Proficiency: Mace] [Weapon Proficiency: Flail] [Weapon Proficiency: Polearm] [Weapon Proficiency: Staff] [Weapon Proficiency: Thrown] [Basic Masonry] [Clock] [Weapon Style: One-Handed] [Weapon Style: Two-Handed] [Weapon Style: Shield] [Soul Sense]

Rank 2 Available Skills: [Appraisal] [Tracking] [Extended Mana Pool] [Enhanced Stamina Recovery] [Secrecy]

Rank 3 Available Skills: [Essence Sight] [Weapon Mastery: Dagger]

That confirmed she'd done it, and as with my case, the extra five level reduction had pushed her over the edge to change class. [Shrouded Reaper] sounded bad-ass enough, but it had unlocked [Invisible Death]. And to think she was working her way through these classes purely to give better surprise hugs, with the fact that she was gaining skills like [Assassinate] nothing more than a happy side effect.

[Non-detection] had replaced [Stealth], so presumably was a strictly superior skill. Given that it let her hide from my active mana scanning, and was presumably responsible for her disguised voice, I could believe it. [Essence Sight] was a perception skill of some sort, but I wasn't going to guess what it could see. From the name, I found it unlikely that it was an upgrade of the three perception skills unlocked by [Scout], but [Shrouded Reaper] didn't really sound like a scouting class, so that wasn't surprising.

Her [Mana Sight] had upgraded to [Mana Perception] without any apparent cost of soul points, and had continued to level at a ridiculous rate. She'd also unlocked [Soul Sense] at some point. I couldn't think how, but that was probably my fault.

[Weapon Mastery: Dagger] was a straight upgrade to [Weapon Proficiency: Dagger]. It was no surprise she'd prioritised [Non-detection] over it, but she could have taken it instead of two of the other skills. Now it would take her another five levels to build up the soul points for it. It was also interesting that she wasn't offered the bow version of the skill. The class had [Unerring Throw], so it obviously wasn't completely melee based. Would it have offered a thrown version, if she'd had that proficiency?

The only issue I saw was the way that she had no crowd control, unless [Assassinate] or her new spells did something very different than what their names suggested. Since I didn't either, it was a major hole in our two-person delving party. I could deal with crowds of monsters with my lightning glove to some extent, but something like Dawnhold's goblin army would be a pain.

"Congratulations," I said, having glanced over her full status. "Those are some awesome sounding new skills."

"Wait, what?" she exclaimed, detaching from me and leaving me with no sign whatsoever she was there. "You can still see me?"