Soon, we were standing in front of the cave that held my best gear. I could have gone in and grabbed my weapons imdiately, but before doing that, I turned to her. "I need you to promise sothing."
She gestured for to continue. "Go ahead."
"I need you to swear that you'll keep what I'm about to reveal to you a secret. It's a matter of life and death," I said. For a mont, she looked affronted, like I had just asked her to deface a monunt to her religion. It clicked. "Except Maria, of course," I added. "I know you two co as a package deal. I won't ask you to keep secrets from her."
I would have if it had any chance of working, but it was a moot point.
She lost her tenseness. "Better," she said. "But, I won't make any promises in her place."
"As long as you help convince her to keep it a secret," I bargained. I wasn't entirely sure if it working, but I wasn't under any delusion. The mont I decided to help Eleanor openly, I knew that they would pay more attention to my actions.
It was inevitable. Previously, no matter how much potential I had offered, I didn't represent an actual threat. What I had displayed while helping Eleanor proved that I was able to fight on the sa stage as them. It ant attention, which would eventually lead to the reveal of my secrets.
Voluntarily revealing them looked much better.
"Let's see what makes you so tense," she said even as I swiped the rocks from the entrance and revealed the safe house to her. There were several notable items, but at the center of the room stood my armor, placed on a mannequin, and next to it, stood my three weapons.
"Looks pretty, but hardly a big reveal," she comnted even as I walked toward the stand. "I was kind of suspicious that you're holding back a new alloy based on the number of shells you collected without the assistance of your new guild, but ntioning killing a dungeon boss pretty much settled it. You need to be able to ignore the corrosion completely to actually spend that much ti on the fourth floor."
"Fifth floor, actually," I corrected, which made her look at with a sudden shock, which made believe that it was a big deal. Admittedly, considering the difference between the fourth and fifth floors, it was certainly a big deal, but I seed to guess that just by the ntion of the fifth floor.
I needed to learn what was common knowledge and what was not.
"How?" she asked.
"Well, I'm sure this will answer so of your questions," I said as I threw her the sword, hilt first. She caught the sword, almost absent-minded, but the mont she swung the sword absentmindedly, she froze like she had been struck by thunder.
"Impossible," she gasped as she let Health cover the sword, which stretched significantly. "I … just…"
I smirked even as I realized the best way of getting rid of her. "Why don't you go out and test it for a mont and anwhile, I can change."
She didn't even deign to answer my question even as she stepped out. I changed into the other armor, grabbed my hamr and spear, and went out. On my waist, I still had the sword I used publicly, which wasn't as good as the one I had given to Eleanor.
I wasn't stupid enough to try and get back the sword from Eleanor … at least, not before I forged one of her own that fit her style even better. I shrugged. I still had my hamr and spear, which was already more useful against the upcoming battle.
The hamr in particular. I could hardly wait until I smashed their faces and —
I paused, my own smug satisfaction made do a double-take. I was thinking about killing people. It was a deep, solemn event. But, I was treating it as a challenge to be cleared, almost like an exciting problem.
I wondered if it had sothing to do with the fact that they were determined to ambush us, or if was I simply getting too used to violence because I had spent my days in violence. Yes, it was against mindless monsters, but it was clearly making more callous to death.
"Maybe I'm the crazy one for actually trying to treat life as sothing sacred," I muttered as I continued to put on my armor. After all, people had been doing their best to treat life as a currency — and not a particularly valuable one — as they tried to climb the ladder of power, both the system and the social kind.
However, the mont I finished putting on armor, I abandoned those thoughts. Not permanently, but there were better ways to handle a potential ambush. Regardless of my own feelings — or lack thereof — the ones that ambushed us needed to be dealt with.
I was afraid of what they would do next.
I replenished my throwing spears, and left the hideout. Outside, Eleanor was practicing her skill attacks, her face contorted in a familiar excitent while the life aura around her sword was thicker than I had ever seen. "Let guess, you have earned a few skill points."
"Try a lot instead. I have gained six points. It's absurd," she responded even as we started to run back. "Is this how you managed to improve that much in such a short ti? I can see why you want to keep this a secret."
"Yes, I don't think a lot of city lords would appreciate the prospect of lower classes getting stronger," I said.
"But they would love to have those swords," she comnted, looking confused.
"Enough to keep a guest forever," I responded. "Before I make any kind of decision, I want to be strong enough."
"Then, why did you co here in the first place and play along," she said. "Aren't there better ways to access a dungeon."
"Well..." I said, realizing that she misunderstood the tiline of my developnt. I wanted to let her continue believing in that. Not due to any practical reason, but solely because I was ashad. But, even the harmless lies had a way of coming out, and the last thing I needed was for her to believe my presence to be so kind of conspiracy.
So, as we traveled back, I gave her an abridged version of my story, up until their recruitnt. It didn't take long, as it was hardly a riveting story. "Really?" she said, chuckling in amusent. "The genius professor wasted three years of his life doing nothing but sending applications."
I shrugged. As much as I wanted to defend myself about the impact of the peace field and how it potentially impacted people who lived in towns, I held back. Not because I wanted to keep it a secret, but because that particular topic needed far more ti than we currently had to properly explain. "I have to admit it was not my finest mont, but it worked out. Without your help, I doubt I could improve my combat skills in such a short ti," I said. I wasn't sure if it was entirely true, but being generous with credit was almost always a better choice.
"Yes, you owe ," Eleanor said, her smile widening. "Wait until Maria learned I managed to help you more than those silly experints."
"I wouldn't go that far. After all, it was her experints that allowed to unlock Essence. Without her, I couldn't use Mana ..." I continued, only to stop when I noticed Eleanor had stopped, and was falling behind .
"Y-you can use mana," she gasped in shock.
There, I realized that I had yet to ntion that fact. "Well, yes," I said even as I raised the sword, and let the mana gather around the edge, which turned mana into sothing actually visible rather than sothing that could be sensed through Essence.
"How?" she repeated. "The only way to unlock new stats is to upgrade class skills, and the skill stones that allow it are nearly impossible to find," she said.
"Maybe, but it doesn't exclude upgrading the skill directly," I said. She looked at blankly. "I'm sure upgrading the rarity of the skills through practice is not a secret."
"Well, no," she said. "But, it only upgrades to the rarer variant of the sa skill."
"Not always," I replied, rembering my own experience with ditation, which upgraded to Cleansing ditation. "And, sotis, achieving sothing incredible, like creating a mana-infused tal alloy can actually upgrade the skill to a rarer variant."
She gasped. "T-that's a ga changer."
"Believe , I'm aware. Why do you think I'm keeping all those secrets? People kill for much less." I didn't have any concerns about revealing that to Eleanor, as paradoxically, it would help her to keep my secret even better.
Ironically, the bigger the secret, the harder it is to sell. My ability to forge weapons that even Eleanor couldn't access from the market was a secret she could have sold for a king's ransom.
The potential to upgrade production classes … was the kind of secret the buyer would have killed everyone just to prevent any accidents.
Hopefully, Eleanor was smart enough to realize that as well.
She stood silent for a while, her expression shifting. "We will talk about it later," she finally declared. "We have a battle to win."
"Don't worry, we will," I said, feeling excited at the prospect. The information I managed to glean from both of them allowed to improve significantly. I was enthusiastic about what a true collaboration could bring.
But first, we had a battle to win.
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