My friend was currently in the middle of a feast with the large amount of monsters that showed up due to he bright light. While my friend was busy with its feast, I used this time to check on my stats. The first thing Mother told me about was that I gained a new Ability Point along with a new skill that I could use once a day. I decided to spend my Ability Point first before I checked on everything else.

  'Oh, it's this again. Last time I picked Sight so this time I'll pick Hearing.'

  'Ah, I can hear... nothing?'

  Even though I could hear now, there wasn't anything to hear. There wasn't a single sound in this barren wasteland.

  'Well, I guess I wasn't missing much, maybe I should've went with sight instead so I could at least see a little better, though with how dark and dead it is down here there really isn't much to see besides those star-like things in the ceiling.'

  Disappointed with my choice, I decided to move on and check my stats that I haven't looked at in a while.

  Needless to say the first thing I noticed was that I was now on the 89th floor. I now knew why everything down here was so damn big and strong. I also noticed my Constitution went up quite a bit, I guess surviving two things that should've killed you will do that. I almost had enough MP now to cast three spells, I really wanted to find a way to learn more magic but I had no idea where I would start. I remembered to ask Mother about my new ability too and I learned that it was called Double Attack. I could use my new ability once every twenty-four hours and for 6 seconds all of my melee attacks would hit twice.

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  'That seems really useful if I combine it wi- AH! What is that?!'

  Suddenly I heard a loud sound next to me and jumped up with my sword drawn. It was just my friend dragging over another body of one of the monsters. The very first sound I heard was the body of a giant snake being dragged across the ground and then devoured by my first friend.

  'Wow, it looks like you're about half done with your feast huh?'

  I decided I sat around long enough so I walked around gathering some dead tree branches again and made a new sleigh because the last one was crushed thanks to some giant monsters. Once my brand new sleigh was finished I started gathering up all the mana cores of the dead monsters. By the time I finished gathering them all I had fourteen of the damn things.

  'Just what exactly am I supposed to do with all of these? If I absorb them all then it'll probably make an even bigger light than the one before.'

  I looked over to my friend and noticed that it was nearly done with the last body.

  'I guess if I found a place in one of those ruins that wasn't too run down then I could store them all there. It's not like I'll get tired carrying them all but I doubt there's enough dead tree branches in this place to carry hundreds of these things. I guess it wouldn't hurt to see if my friend would be willing to visit one of the ruins.'

  I sat down and waited patiently until my friend finished eating and then I walked over to it and poked it in the side. I waited a few seconds, then walked back a little and pointed towards one of the ruins in the distance. With a little waving of my arms, some more poking, and a little more pointing, my friend got the idea and started wiggling toward the large ruins in the distance. I followed closely behind with my sleigh full of mana cores waiting to see if I could make myself a home in one of the many ruined castles that littered this wasteland.

  We walked, and walked, and then walked even more after that. I didn't realize how far away this castle really was, it didn't look this far when we started. Along the way the mana cores kept piling up, I didn't want a single one to go to waste. As I was thinking about these mana cores and what exactly they did I remembered that Mother told me that by raising my level I would also shorten the time it took to absorb the cores.

  'Mother, how much time is left until I finish absorbing the cores?'

  'Oh, well at least it was shortened significantly. Maybe I should throw swords at giant monsters more often.'

  The only reason why I didn't bother trying to gain experience off of my friends kills is that it felt like a rude thing to do. When I did it before it was to protect it because I didn't want to lose the only friend I've ever had. But if I do it now it'll only be because I want experience so I can get stronger. I don't want be someone that uses friends to get things I want. I only collect these mana cores because it doesn't bother to eat them, if it doesn't want them then anyone can take it.

  I kept debating whether I should or shouldn't start using my friends kills as a way of gaining experience when I noticed that we'd finally arrived at the castle. At least, from a distance it looked like a castle, up close it looked closer to a mountain but that was probably just because a good portion of it was a 'mountain' of rubble.

  'Looks like we finally made it, let's go explore and see if I can find a way to make this a home.'

  I took my first step inside of the giant ruined castle and hoped that I wouldn't be forced to use Second Wind again.