While I knew Maria and Eleanor were on the way, I stayed in the dungeon nevertheless, talking with the guards to learn about the various thods that they had used to explore the dungeon. It started as listening to them about the stories, but soon it turned into a Q&A session as they proved very willing to answer my questions, where I started to ask very pointed questions about the tactics they had used to first explore the dungeon and determine its profitability.
At first, I was surprised by the candid way they answered the questions, even with Eleanor leaving in charge unofficially. At first, I assud it was my generous tipping that had earned this privilege, but even that felt a bit excessive.
Then, it clicked. It was my power. More accurately, their perception of my power. From their perspective, I was already at least level hundred — with the gossip split equally on whether I had passed the threshold — and with that power, ca respect.
It was just that I underestimated the intensity of it.
It was my mistake considering my job. While equality had always been more of an idealized concept than a true reality, it didn't change the fact that, before the Calamity, all people had been in the sa baseline. Yet, even then, people had a tendency to idolize the strong and the famous. It was inevitable.
Ultimately, humans were social beings, and the more complicated the society, the more we relied on heuristic patterns of thought. In the past, the rich, the strong, and the famous had been revered.
Here, a sufficiently high level ant all three. Levels ant power, in a direct, visceral way that was impossible to ignore. Then, with the world economy regressing to a primitive level, power also ant riches. It was a reason that there wasn't anyone above level fifty trying to get into this dungeon. They had better dungeons to make money from.
Dungeons that didn't require them to get away from what passed for civilization.
More importantly, the ones that didn't put them in the middle of a political dispute.
This ant that, other than Eleanor and Maria, I was perceived to be the only high-level person here, and with that, ca respect. However, it was one thing to acknowledge it in theory, another thing was to live through it. Even as a professor, I wasn't used to it, though that was mostly due to my age making it difficult for my students to respect .
Suddenly, I was glad that I didn't have to deal with it for long. Arthur was a fake identity, one that I would abandon as soon as I made enough money. But, that was for the future. I still had too much to learn here.
I continued questioning them, trying to learn the tactics they had used. It seed that they had already utilized so of the more obvious thods. Spears had worked to kill, but their wooden handles degraded even faster under the corrosive effect.
As for bows, the cost of ammunition made it unsustainable. Special arrowheads were required to penetrate through the thick shells of the monsters, which inevitably ruined the arrow itself, making it more expensive.
I questioned whether they tried to raise so native plants. They confird that they tried and abandoned it quickly. Apparently, the native dungeon plants pushing back the dungeon mist was a known trick, but it wasn't well explored, because there were better magical alternatives that could dispel that mist and reestablish better visual clarity.
Alternatives that didn't work in a region that lacked mana — or, as my experints showed, had a low mana density. And, according to them, the desert nature of the dungeon ant that growing any kind of plant was not worth the effort.
It ant that no one had bothered to experint with the water from the fourth floor, at least properly. I could have revealed that, but it would have told Eleanor that monopolizing the fourth floor was possible despite the corrosive effect, which would ruin my business model.
Instead, I wanted to try sothing simpler.
"Lend your bow. I want to try sothing," I asked one of the guards. While they didn't use them for hunting insects as it was expensive, so of them were still ard with bows to defend the fort.
Not many of them, which was probably why Thomas' trick had been that devastating.
He passed the bow imdiately, but I noticed the hesitance as he passed the arrows. "Just two arrows is enough," I said. "And take ten shells from the latest order. It should be enough, right?" I said. I knew it was overpaying, but it was always better to keep people happy while asking for a favor.
I went back into the dungeon, once again relying on the mist to hide from the view. But, instead of targeting them directly, I reached into my bag, and pulled a skill stone — one of many I carried with — which I had been planning to consu.
[Skill Stone: Shoot (Basic)]
"Let's add a ranged attack to the mix," I muttered even as I consud it. The sensation of absorbing a skill was disorienting as always, but a basic skill was easy to ignore.
[Shoot (Basic) - 1]
The first few tis, I used the bow to aim at the rocks, testing the skill. Just like the other basic combat skills, shooting only ca with the most basic motion, nothing else. It gave a general understanding of how to hold, how to pull back, aim, and shoot.
Even with the skill barely at one, I was able to hit a target accurately from ten yards away. Dexterity helped with aiming, but the greater the distance, the more inaccurate my aim beca. Compensating for that inaccuracy was possible, but it slowed the process of aiming even more.
There were several reasons that most people preferred lee over ranged. The first was the logistic challenge. While arrows could be used multiple tis, they were still more fragile than weapons. They broke and got lost, and collecting them was a significant chore. Not to ntion, it ant it was harder to replenish them during longer expeditions.
Especially since the best arrows ca from the System Shops, like everything else.
As a result of all these factors, not only was killing monsters from the range more expensive, but it was also more challenging. Stronger monsters were either armored, which made arrows a very bad — or expensive — thod of dealing with them; or they had been agile enough to avoid arrows even after they were shot, making the task of hitting them at a distance impossible.
Sotis, they had just excess vitality, requiring an absurd amount of arrows to take down.
They were not really useful other than for support — unless soone had a special class — because magic was much more effective as a ranged weapon. Stronger, more accurate, and, most importantly, cheaper.
Well, cheaper anywhere with abundant mana. But, even in mana dead zones, it was probably a close call. Of course, the biggest reason for their relative lack of use was that they required Perception, even for their Common variant, which was not exactly a common stat.
And then, there were even fewer classes that had Perception and Strength at the sa ti, the second stat necessary to use bows with higher draw weight. Of course, they were still useful in many circumstances, especially near settlents, and more expensive crossbows with certain enchantnts removed so of those drawbacks.
When all those facts combined, it explained why they were not as popular as lee while exploring dungeons, even in ones like ours.
"Now, let's improve it," I said. I could have practiced it again and again until I was confident in taking down the beast. Instead, I touched the arrow I had borrowed, and modified its surface with my mana, adding a few hexagons and arrow structure to make it better to hold mana.
Then, I pumped it with mana, treated it as a spear, and shot it to a nearby target. The rock I targeted had been demolished.
[-9 Mana]
[Shoot (Basic) 1 - 25]
One step was enough to maximize the basic skill. "Excellent," I muttered even as I used the other arrow to practice a few more tis, getting a better sense of the abilities and limitations of the skill. I quickly made a few simple bows and crossbows, all made purely of tal, reusing the bowstring from the bow I had borrowed.
Of course, those bows were useless garbage. Pure tal was not a good material for making bows. However, since my aim was to understand which weapons triggered the basic skill, it still worked.
And, a smile popped on my face when I noticed crossbows were included on that list. It gave an idea for an interesting pitch. I broke down the weapons I forged into base tal — mana once again allowing to bypass very cumberso steps under automatic control of my skill — and returned to the fort.
Eleanor was waiting for there.
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