“Hop, humph,” I jumped down from the tree, landing on the ground.

  “Are they asleep?” Tarrion asked.

  “Probably not,” I said before sitting down in front of the fire.

  All the women climbed up the tree, with Ranalaiya and Virghel helping Krisel and Sylfrin get up there, all of them finally laying down to sleep. Neither I nor Tarrion bothered to hang the hammocks up due to it being totally dark now. We had brought additional bedding with us to use because we would need to sleep on the ground once we reach the eighth floor of the dungeon, giving most of it to the women to use now, us guys deciding we’d sleep on the ground under the tree. Truth was, it was kinda cool to have more men in the party. I could have some proper guy-talk for a change.

  “Thanks for taking me along with you, Rockin,” Alragus said in a quiet voice. It was late and we should’ve laid down to sleep ourselves as well, but all three of us felt like talking some more. “I honestly thought I’ll have a hard time finding a group to go to the dungeon in order to level up.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem. The more the merrier,” I smiled. “Speaking of which, since you’re level twelve right now that means you were going to the dungeon with someone else before? Did you have a regular group or did you simply form a party with random adventurers?” I asked Alragus becoming curious.

  “I had a regular group, but it was quite a while back,” Alragus said.

  “What happened?” I asked before adding. “If you don’t mind telling us about it.”

  “Not at all,” Alragus snorted before having a drink from his water bottle. “To tell you the truth, I was never an adventuring type person. I was very content with wielding the blacksmithing hammer. I found crafting armor and weapons much more fun… and relaxing.”

  “Yeah, I can tell you put a lot into crafting armor and weapons, especially weapons,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Alragus said, taking a moment to think about what to say next. “Anyway, and if we talk about crafting in general, in order to craft better armor and weapons the crafter needs to increase their stats which means the crafter needs to increase their own level, in addition to raising their crafting skill. Other than increasing their own level, and depending on what kind of crafting skill they have, the crafter also needs to focus on raising specific character stats as well. For example, Blacksmithing skill requires me to have higher Stamina and Strength stats. Stamina for being able to work longer at the forge. Strength to be able to craft better equipment while working at the anvil. Same goes for profession skills like Tailoring, Leatherworking and other crafting skills. Tailors would usually focus on increasing their Spell Power and Magic Energy stats while leatherworkers would focus on increasing their Agility stat, with either Strength or Stamina being their secondary stat, depending on what kind of equipment they want to craft.”

  “Humph,” I dipped my head, thinking about it. My Agility stat isn’t that high, but Ranalaiya’s new Swiftstrike Armor set that I had crafted focuses on increasing her Agility stat. That just made me wonder about what Alragus has said regarding crafting and character’s stats.

  “You might be an exception to the rule here, Rockin. After all, you don’t have a specialized crafting skill,” Alragus said, surprising my by catching what I was thinking about.

  “Huh? Oh, ok,” I said, being slightly surprised Alragus was able to pick up on it.

  “Killing Carnabbits is easy. You could gain one or two levels easily fighting them solo,” Tarrion said, shifting the talk towards leveling up.

  “Yes, and that’s what I did,” Alragus said. “Starting to work as a blacksmith while being level one wouldn’t have earned me a living. I wouldn’t have been able to craft any decent equipment even if I tried. So, I was farming Carnabbits until I’ve reached level three, but then I’ve learned pretty quickly that opening a blacksmithing workshop wasn’t going to be easy. Finding a place for my workshop aside, getting crafting materials cost money, even if they are basic crafting materials. To be able to start working as a blacksmith I needed to make some money first and you both know selling Carnabbit fur wasn’t paying much. Luckily, I was able to strike a deal with one of the diners to sell them Carnabbit meat too. Savirei wasn’t yet around at that time. However, I wasn’t actually making money selling meat to that particular diner. They didn’t want to pay me money because getting Carnabbit meat was easy, but they did agree to give me food for free in exchange for the meat. That was a good enough deal for me.”

  “Carnabbit meat prepared by someone who can cook always tastes better than the one you try cooking it yourself,” I said, more so to let Alragus know I’ve been listening to him.

  “Agreed,” he noted before continuing his story. “So, in order to make more money I needed to raise my level so I could take on better paying quests, but to do that I needed to find a party I could go into the dungeon with. Long story short, a party of four took me in. They were low level adventurers just like me and they were eager to make it big, as always young adventurers are. You know, become an A or above rank adventurers, join a big, powerful clan and go conquer raid dungeons. I wasn’t that ambitious myself, but I supported them.”

  “Raid dungeons, huh?” I commented, touching my chin to try and imagine what was the difference between a normal dungeon and a raid dungeon.

  “Raid dungeons are dungeons that require ten or more high level adventurers form groups in order to explore them. And when I say high level adventurers I mean level thirty and above,” Tarrion shared an observation.

  “Level thirty and above? Wow,” I gasped.

  “Not to mention, they’d need to have much, much better gear compared to what we use right now. Well, maybe except your new shield, Zemmor the Protector. Many tanks would be very happy to have one of those,” Tarrion added.

  “Yeah, well, it was a gift from Lilfira’s father,” I said, making a half grimace.

  “I have no intention of even asking you to give or sell me that shield. I’m not that kind of guy anymore,” Tarrion grunted.

  “Right,” I said, showing an awkward smile before remembering we had interrupted Alragus’ story. “Sorry, Alragus. Please continue.”

  “That’s no problem,” he said before resuming telling us his story. “The party I started going into the dungeon with was a decent bunch and we were doing well too. It was hard at first, of course. Learning the ropes, improving our teamwork, fighting monsters. You know, the usual stuff. Since I had my Blacksmithing skill, and I had learned beforehand what stats I would need to focus in order to craft better equipment, I was raising my Strength stat for the most part. There was another guy in our party who wanted to get a strength-based class, so he was focusing on increasing his Strength stat as well. I for one, didn’t care what class I would get, but I knew if I wanted to raise my level higher than level five, our party would need to have a Tank, so on my fourth level up I had put all of my stat points into my Stamina stat, raising my base Stamina to twenty. I was putting almost all of my stat points into my Strength stat up to that point which was twenty five by then. The guy was happy I didn’t mind being a tank and I said I could tank for our party even if I were to receive any other class upon reaching level five.”

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  “So, you were tanking even though you had received a Berserker class?” I asked. In all fairness, if a person had high enough Stamina stat and was wearing equipment that provided bonus stats to their Stamina as well the group wouldn’t really need a person with the Tank class in their group to act as a meatshield.

  “Not exactly,” said Alragus, making a pause.

  “Let me guess, that other guys had acquired the Tank class, right?” Tarrion jumped in with an assumption when Alragus made a pause.

  “Exactly,” Alragus said, my eyebrows shooting up from surprise that Tarrion actually guessed right. “The person wasn’t exactly upset about it, but he wasn’t too happy about it either. He didn’t want to be a Tank for the group, so I took it upon myself. We agreed I will continue tanking while he tried to focus on damage dealing even with his Tank class. Besides, he was hoping I’d receive a Tank class as well, so he could continue being a damage dealer while I would continue tanking for our group.”

  “Let me be the oracle here this time and guess what happened after you had received your Berserker class,” I used the moment of silence to try and be the smart guy this time. “You were kicked out of the party because the guy was too jealous of your class?”

  “No,” Alragus said, bursting my oracle’s bubble. “Like I said, the people I was with were a decent bunch. The other three people were against me tanking since I had acquired a pure damage class and wanted the other guy to switch to tanking instead. I had received my Strong Grip skill upon reaching level six too which basically made me a two-handed weapon damage dealer. As much as the other person was against tanking, he came to realize that not utilizing his skills as a Tank would be a waste and a detriment to the whole group. So, with the group’s help, he went and acquired some tanking gear and our dungeon explorations resumed, with me being the damage dealer this time.”

  “Humph,” Tarrion smirked, probably remembering something, but he didn’t say what it was.

  “So, you’ve been adventuring with your group until you’ve reached level twelve?” I asked Alragus.

  “No,” Alragus said, completely killing my would be clairvoyance career with it. “I was sticking with them until I had reached level nine, or to be more precise, until I had saved enough to open my blacksmithing workshop. It wasn’t as big as the one I have now, but I was happy with it. My party couldn’t believe it when I finally told them I would be stopping adventuring. They were rather shocked about it, actually. Not because I was leaving their group, but because I wanted to be a blacksmith. Even at the Guild they were surprised to learn I had opened a blacksmithing workshop. They said that Berserker class was one of the high sought after damage dealing classes and that I could get into a big clan just because I had the Berserker class. The thing was, I was planning to become a blacksmith from the very beginning, so it didn’t matter to me if I had Berserker or any other class. I set out to do what I wanted to do and do not regret my decision up to this day.”

  “Hey, that’s a cool story, and you know what, I am very happy you decided to be a blacksmith,” I said and I really meant it.

  “Thanks, Rockin,” Alragus said, sounding happy. “On a sidenote, I had never heard of a Shielder class.”

  “Shielder class? Oh, yeah. Me neither,” I said, adding a shrug.

  “Humph,” Alragus snorted, but it was hard to tell if he thought what I said was funny or the opposite.

  “Furball here had received his Shielder class when he had reached level two,” Tarrion blurted, clearly on purpose.

  “On reaching level two?” Alragus gasped, not able to believe.

  “Thanks, Scarface,” I grimaced.

  “You’re welcome,” Tarrion said, surprising me by adding a smirk at the end.

  “But… how?” Alragus asked, wanting to know while still being perplexed.

  “Right. It’s probably due to me acquiring my Overgrowth skill,” I said, thinking that explaining how I actually got it wouldn’t hurt. “If you remember how my Overgrowth skill works, I need to decline my Level Up offers in order to level up. It makes no sense, I know, but instead of gaining stat points that I would be able to assign in order to increase my stats with each level up, my stat points get increased at random each time I decline my Level Up offer. However, my stats would get increased by only two or three points with each level up decline.”

  “Only… two or three points,” Tarrion scoffed, rolling his eyes.

  “Well, yeah,” I said, adding a frown.

  “Except that those two or three stat points add up and your current base stats at level nine are higher than someone else’s base stats at level twenty,” Tarrion added, shaking his head.

  “They do…” I said, making a pause to try and think what I wanted to say next, but my mind was blank.

  “But if you decline your Level Up offers every single time, how does your level increase, Rockin?” Alragus asked, saving me from trying to think of something smart to say.

  “Oh, that’s because there’s a limit to how many Level Up offers I can decline. Basically, my level goes up with each tenth level up decline. Meaning, on my tenth level up decline I don’t get my stats increased anymore, but get my level increased instead,” I explained. “Makes sense?”

  “I see. So, if you get your stats increased by two or three points with each of your level up decline, and you say you need to decline your level up nine times before your level goes up, that means your stats grow by eighteen to twenty seven points per actual level up,” Alragus was quick to do the calculations on how much my stats grew with each full level up.

  “Ah, yeah, I guess,” I had no reason to disagree.

  “That’s basically a two hundred fifty points increase in stats on average for every ten real level ups. Compare that to the average fifty points increase in stats for any other adventurer. Wait, two hundred fifty and fifty…” Tarrion did some calculations as well before becoming shocked when he realized the difference between the two. “For fucks sake, Furball. If I ever hear you complain about you being low level again…” Tarrion gave me the nastiest glare he had ever had.

  “Yes, sorry. Never again,” I said, raising my hands in front of me defensively while smiling sillily.

  “Unique skills are unique for a reason,” Alragus commented, his words making Tarrion and I turn to look at him.

  “Tch… you can say that again,” Tarrion said before letting out a deep sigh. “But just so we’re clear, Furball, I am not envying you for acquiring your Overgrowth skill. Quite the opposite, I am happy I hadn’t received it because if I had, I would’ve been dead by now.”

  “Huh? What?” I asked, making a grimace. I couldn’t believe it.

  “It’s very simple. Being the way I was at the very beginning, I would’ve boasted about it left and right which would’ve attracted unwanted attention. I could bet that when certain people would’ve found out about me having a Unique skill, I would’ve been either enslaved or worse. I couldn’t understand why you were keeping your Overgrowth skill to yourself at first, but now I do. I can promise I won’t be the one from whom people find out about your Overgrowth skill, Krisel included,” Tarrion delivered some unexpected speech, totally surprising me with his honesty.

  “Wow, thanks,” I said, taken aback by Tarrion’s words.

  “Same here as well. I’ll keep my mouth shut no matter what,” Alragus made a promise too.

  “Ah, thanks, Alragus,” I said, silence falling down around us, with only the sound of the fire burning being heard. “Hey, you know what? There’s one part of this Secret Area that might not be explored yet.” With the awkward silence surrounding us, I suddenly remembered the impenetrable thicket wall that I could never get past being here in this Secret Area.

  “What? Seriously?” Tarrion asked, perking up.

  “Yeah. Of course, I haven’t checked it for so long, so somebody might’ve found a way through it,” I added.

  “Damn, why didn’t you tell me about it way earlier?” Tarrion complained.

  “Well…” I didn’t know what kind of excuse to offer. I simply forgot about it.

  “We could check tomorrow?” Alragus suggested.

  “Obviously,” Tarrion said before standing up. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “Yes, me too,” Alragus added, following Tarrion’s example.

  “Right. Good night, I guess,” I said, lifting my ass to go lay down as well.

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