Blacksmith vs. the System

"I'm spending too much time in swamps, wading through knee-deep water," I said and took a shallow breath. While my connection with the dungeon had allowed me to push away its corrosive aura and keep myself safe, that did nothing to the ugly feeling of breathing swamp fumes. And it certainly didn't smell like a rose garden.

Nor did it help the ugly sensation of my feet sinking into the mud, the texture enough to annoy me. The fifth-floor swamp was truly an ugly place. However, as I walked forward, I couldn't help but compare it with the other swamps I had seen in those weird dreams. Those looked much better with their glowing plants and lively environment.

"Unfortunately, terraforming thousands of square miles of land is not my first priority," I said. Not only was my newly acquired Legendary Nurture not the first skill I wanted to improve, but even if I did, I had a much better way of achieving it.

Instead, I twirled my hammer while doing my best to ignore the annoying sucking sensation under my boots, and searched for the next batch of insects. For once, on the fifth floor, I had to search for them rather than the opposite; which was a side effect of practicing an Epic sword skill for a while while expanding a lot of mana, not to mention my earlier experiment where I killed ten boss monsters back to back.

I probably destroyed tens of thousands of insects in less than four hours. One good thing came of the process: it gave me a lot of Epic Nurture that the farmers who couldn't improve their skills naturally could use.

Despite the damaged insect population, the fifth floor was the perfect place to test my new skills. I had spent the past few hours familiarizing myself with Blade of Bulwark, which had already given me a better idea regarding how to improve an Epic combat skill to the first stage.

Luckily, even with the dungeon's population significantly damaged, it didn't take long for me to find a new swarm, which emerged from the fog — the ordinary kind — with their usual rage, their carapaces glistening in the dim light, their mandibles clicking threateningly.

I held back my desire to make bad hammer puns as I raised my Hammer high, pumping my mana to its head as I waited for them to get closer. Only when the one at the front was merely a yard away, I brought the hammer down.

[-120 Mana]

The quake attack was different from mana blades. It didn't have the great, steady range of the blade attacks, nor did it have the gentle effectiveness of the spear attacks. It spread like a cone, barely spreading ten yards before it lost its power, meaning most of the horde was still alive. If it was a blade attack, all of the insects would have died.

What it had was power. Pure, unbridled power. The attacking insects, regardless of their type, turned into small chunks as they spread around, making me glad for the self-cleaning feature of the dungeon.

The reward was equally eye-catching.

[Hammer of Avalanche (Epic) 1 -> 34]

"Perfect," I muttered, swinging the hammer again, this time channeling Health to its direct capabilities rather than using the attacks that I had adopted from its Rare variants.

[-250 Health]

[Hammer of Avalanche (Epic) 34 -> 45]

The results were even more spectacular. Unlike the previous attack, the shockwave spread in a more controlled manner. Not just a wild cone, but as a line, extending the area it affected significantly. But, its restrained nature didn't limit its destructive power. For an outside observer, it would have looked like the middle portion of the horde had simply disappeared.

"Not bad," I said happily, realizing that I had underestimated the change between the Rare and Epic skills because of the lackluster performance of Blade of Bulwark; but it was just misjudging the balance of offense and defense of the skill.

I realized that I could probably defeat Eleanor without her mana skill with relative ease. A great growth, too bad it came in a way, that guaranteed to make even bigger enemies.

After testing the hammer skill, the rest was easy. Just move around the dungeon, occasionally spreading tainted energy to trigger their approach. Half an hour of commitment gave me enough improvement to bring it to a satisfactory point.

[Hammer of Avalanche (Epic) - 92]

However, the constant improvement of the attack wasn't the only benefit. Switching between two skills gave me another opportunity to understand the conceptual weight of the attacks. With my earlier experimentation failing to yield any practical results, observation — the ordinary kind, and not the perk kind — turned significantly more valuable.

"Let's add some more samples," I said as I switched to my spear, and pierced the nearest insect, the mana sticking around its tip rather than turning into a ranged attack. Naturally, it was not an ordinary coating, but one that cycled and rotated in a complicated pattern that I learned from Breeze Spear.

[Spear of Storms (Epic) 1 -> 8]

The sudden burst of improvement wasn't as impressive, but it was inevitable. The ranged attacks from the spear were not particularly impressive, its true value lying in its mobility value. "At least, flying is not a default part," I muttered in relief even as I darted forward, using its natural mobility.

Even without any enhancement from Health or Mana, the agility it provided was enough to surpass my earlier Fleeting Step, but the method was quite similar. The more I interacted with the perks, the more I got convinced that they were merely a unique subset of abilities from the more advanced form of the skill.

Meaning, that all my efforts learning the applications of the perks could be deemed a waste, at least from the perspective of measuring only the outcome. However, it was just an absentminded mental flicker, as I always believed that methods taught people more than the outcomes.

My rapid development only confirmed this notion.

"Focus," I admonished myself, taking down several insects at once as I swung my spear as an arc. Technically, not the ideal way of using a spear, but with its body glowing with mana, it didn't matter.

[Spear of Storms (Epic) 8 -> 21]

As I continued to enhance the skill, I realized that, unlike the previous two variants, the name Storm not only referred to the movement speed of the style, but also to the destructive potential it contained. Once I used the Vitality attack, the energy crackled around the spearhead threateningly.

It wasn't truly electricity, but an approximation of it, almost a conceptual copy. I didn't know just how strong the attack was — the insects didn't make the best measure of endurance since they died by one stab either way — but I guessed it wasn't low.

As for whether Hammer of Avalanche or Spear of Storms had the higher destructive power, it probably depended on the nature of the enemy.

However, it was just another item to the long list of questions that needed to be answered.

I continued to move through the swamp, dealing with the insects through various attacks, and soon, their numbers were in the low nineties as well. I paused, wondering about the relative merits of pushing the skill higher versus letting it stay at its current level and focusing on other tasks before nightfall.

It was a difficult choice, particularly since I expected it to show some fundamental improvements once they surpassed three hundred. Every other skill did so, sacrificing another hour for another twenty skill points, spread across the three skills was worthwhile.

Luckily, before I could make that decision, a distinct feeling warned me about the birth of another boss monster. "Right on time," I muttered even as I started running toward the beast, which rushed toward me with an equal display of anger to erase me.

Soon, I was facing another gargantuan insect with its thick, armored shell. The perfect target for testing my new skills.

"First, the offense," I said to myself and rushed forward, dancing around the beast as I applied several choice attacks, a mixture of Vitality, dense Vitality, and ordinary mana. I would have loved to use the dense mana equivalent of it as well, but that was temporarily outside my capabilities.

Maybe if I could forge an appropriate composite weapon…

I soon shifted to the hammer, repeating the same, focusing the immense destructive power to completely destroy its legs before I switched to the sword and shield combo. It was intentional, as, unlike the others, I wanted to test its defensive potential, and the best way to do that was when the boss monster was too injured to unleash a full-powered attack.

With my shield flaring with dense Vitality, the beast smashed against me, only for its attack to be completely wasted. Blade of Bulwark took the first step into proving itself by taking an impaired charge from the boss monster.

Then, I switched to mana, replicating the effect, which worked well enough until the boss had recovered its full might. The next few attacks showed that my variant with mana could only take down attacks when it was weakened, while dense Vitality was able to tank even full-powered charges, ignoring the gap between our relative mass with ease.

Once that was confirmed, I started cycling between the different weapons, until I finished the battle with a devastating hit from Hammer of Avalanche.

"Not a bad visit," I said. The fifth floor might be a disgustingly unpleasant location, but the benefits of a visit were hard to argue against.

[Hammer of Avalanche (Epic) - 125

Blade of Bulwark (Epic) - 123

Spear of Storm (Epic) -122]

Now, it was time to put them to a more hostile test, one on the outside…