After a sowhat prolonged rest within the ward, watching the bat flutter about at the edge, Jas hauled himself back to his feet. His armor clanked, feeling almost as heavy as his old [First Armor] set. The back to back fights had been exhausting.
Over several trips, Jas managed to get the monster carcasses back to his main camp. He wanted nothing more than to eat and sleep, but he wanted to at least disassemble the mole monster carcasses and get them smoking. On top of that, the tree monsters were made of, well, wood, and he was hoping to use that wood in the smoker and possibly improve the taste of the smoked monster at, at least a little bit. He had no hope of doing any real woodworking that he couldn't accomplish better by simply forging, at this point. He also had hopes for the vines: maybe they could be made into rope, sohow? Hopefully by drying them out. He straightened out the vines he had and laid them flat in a corner of the camp.
Each of the mole monsters had a Brown Magic Crystal embedded in their hearts, even the smaller one. At first Jas thought that the tree monsters didn't have magic crystals at all, but it turned out they were at the base of the "tree," near where trunk transitioned to roots. The first was blue in color.
[Material Identification: Water Magic Crystal]
The second magic crystal from the tree monsters turned out to be an Earth Magic Crystal like with the mole monsters.
Jas stored all the magic crystals in the magic bag.
As soon as the smoker was up and running, already slling less foul than normal, Jas laid down and passed out without even eating.
An indeterminate ti later, Jas woke with a start. He bolted to an upright sitting position and looked around, but the cavern was the sa as always, dimly lit and with the gentle breeze carrying away the smoke from the smoker.
He was ravenous. His stomach growled loudly, and Jas hurriedly prepared so porridge. After several servings of the porridge, he forced down so monster at. Even as hungry as he was, he didn't want to risk eating the coal-smoked monster at on an empty stomach.
Jas put off his most pressing concern for the mont and inspected his armor. It was more or less battered and dented, almost entirely from the assault of the tree monsters.
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Bucket Helt, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 11/15
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Cuirass, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 9/15
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Armored Skirt, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 3/8
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Codpiece, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 6/10
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Greaves, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 5/10
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Cuisses, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 4/10
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Left Pauldron, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 14/15
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Right Pauldron, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 7/9
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Bracers, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 7/10
[Appraisal]: Green Iron Cleat Boots, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 10/12
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[Appraisal]: Green Iron Tower Shield, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 13/14, Enchantnt: Reflect (10)]
[Appraisal: Earth War Hamr, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 14/15, Enchantnt: Heavy Blow (10)]
The Smith's Shield and Hamr were essentially undamaged, so he set them aside. The armor, however, needed repairs. Thankfully only the Armored Skirt was so damaged that reforging entirely would be a better idea. It would eat into his small stock of Green Iron, but only a little, and he knew where more was, so he wasn't too worried.
Well, until he rembered the nearby spider passage.
He shuddered and then turned to his top priority.
Making an oven to bake bread!
Thus far, he hadn't touched the stocks of flour or yeast that had been in the magic bag. But it was becoming clear that if he was going to keep exploring the other cavern, he'd need so kind of portable food. Walking over a hundred yards back to camp was too much of a pain and, in the worst case scenario, he might not be able to get back to camp.
He didn't know if one could eat flour raw, but he didn't want to find out either. Culinary experintation with mole monster at was already far enough for him.
The first attempt was a kiln-like structure that was so hot it almost instantly burned his small test dough to a blackened crisp, and then entirely to ash.
Jas was used to making slters and forges, after all.
After a day's worth or trial and error he eventually settled on a forged box like structure, entirely open on one end but which kept coal smoke (mostly) out that was workable. As a bonus, it could be disassembled and reassembled using so moderately clever joinery tricks. Perhaps most importantly, it [Appraised] as a [Portable Oven] and could be stored in the magic bag.
At the end of the day, Jas feasted on partially burnt bread from his baking experints.
Unexpectedly, Jas was able to chalk up another win in the culinary column. His efforts in retrieving and processing the mole monster carcasses had paid off: smoked with tree monster wood instead of coal and properly drained of blood and not allowed to just lie about for untold hours, the mole monster at rely tasted unpleasant rather than foul or outright offensive.
ntally he divided his monster at stocks between "foul" and "decent." And strangely enough, the magic bag even recognized the distinction, letting him choose which to withdraw.
Jas frowned at the magic bag, feeling like it was mocking him sohow, but of course the magic bag was an inanimate, though enchanted, object.
Maybe it wasn't the bag, but magic itself that was mocking Jas.
He decided he would never know for sure and put it out of his mind.
The final task for the day was the casting of several water jugs which also had no trouble going into the magic bag.
Better fed than he had been in almost a year, but still exhausted, Jas slept peacefully.
The next day was dedicated to repairing his armor and reforging the Armored Skirt. At the end of it his armor was restored to full durability, although the pieces now looked well-worn rather than new. The quality already being Very Low ant that it couldn't drop any further, and when he tried on the pieces to test if he still had full range of motion everything was fine, so he didn't worry about it.
When he checked his stock of Green Iron, however, he only had three ingots left. He would need to go to that room that was full of colored iron ore and mine out what he could. The other large cavern itself, of course, also had small veins of green iron here and there, but the abundance of monsters in the area made it too dangerous to be Jas' first choice.
Jas, having taken care of his top priorities – bread and armor repair – now turned to the Water Magic Crystal. Arguably the second best treasure of his recent exploring, behind the tree monster wood, the crystal would expand his available enchantnts. He only knew two Basic Water Enchantnts: [Frostbite] and [Water Resistance].
Unfortunately, it didn't seem like either would be particularly useful. Disappointed, Jas rolled the magic crystal around in his hand for a bit, then stowed it back in the magic bag.
With that, he was ready. He topped up the magic power in the ward, donned his repaired armor, and walked across the cavern to his other set of wards. He passed through the small room and into the cavern, inside his warded area, and let his eyes adjust to the dimr light.
The cavern was eerily silent. Jas had expected the bat he had left behind several days ago would still be there, trying to follow him, but it was gone now. Growing nervous, Jas carefully looked around from the edge of the ward, looking for spiders or signs of spider webs outside their passage.
But there was nothing.
Cautiously, as quietly as he could, shield raised and Earth War Hamr at the ready, Jas advanced.
Ti to explore the last four passages.
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