"That's enough," Maria finally called. "My head is actually aching."
"Alright, but you have made excellent progress," I said. It was not an exaggeration. We were on it for almost four hours, and in that short amount of time, she had made enough progress to make even the most overachieving student proud as long as they had managed to replicate it in a week.
A part of it was about the Intelligence helping her, but not all of it. Her effort and general understanding also helped. Intelligence might not be able to help her internalize her learnings, or even memorize any faster — that apparently required Wisdom, which her class lacked — but it still helped her to keep many things actively in her mind, helping her to contextualize things faster than I expected.
"Really, it doesn't feel like it," she said. "Nothing I learned was useful."
"You can already read my equations, and help me do the statistical calculations. Alone, running those analyses would have taken me a month at minimum," I said.
"Really?" she said. "A month?"
Eleanor intervened. "Sometimes, you're forgetting the value of having five hundred intelligence."
"I thought you were supposed to be a vase. Shut up," Maria said, blushing slightly.
I watched them argue, split between feeling shocked and happy. Shocked, because five hundred intelligence was shockingly high. For me, receiving double stats was already impressive, and that was with Strength and Vitality, the two most common stats.
The happy part came from Eleanor casually revealing one of Maria's important secrets, and Maria not caring the slightest. It was a great way to show acceptance, especially since it was clear that they had done so immediately.
"So, what's next?" Eleanor asked. "Don't tell me I have to sit down for another hour? Because I need to visit the town and make sure everything is in order."
"Well, no," I said as I checked the results of the calculations. "I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure if I could implement them based on the equipment here. I have to forge a sword using the Epic skill to test it, and for that, I need my real forge. It'll take at least half a day, so you can do whatever you need, even catch your sleep."
"Really? Half a day? Is it that far away?" Maria interjected.
"Not really. That part merely takes a few minutes at full speed," I said. "It's the forging that'll take the time."
"Then, how do you forge all those arrowheads?" Maria asked.
"It's about how Epic Skills, at least the ones I have, work. It creates what I termed dense mana."
"That, we know," Maria said. "It's how every Epic skill works. But, I don't understand the difference it makes. Doesn't the skill handle all of it?" she asked.
"It's less about the Epic, and more about how I handle the forging —" I started, only to realize that, during the experimentation, I always absorbed mana first before creating the composite sword, as it was easier and more efficient as long as I forged just one or two items. "Let me show you," I said even as I dragged the crusher next to my tools, and rapidly forged ten swords, each taking merely half a minute, manipulating the mana indirectly.
"Is this how you managed to climb to Epic quickly," Maria said, her eyebrows creased.
"Yeah. It's even easier to use Mana Control in mana-dead locations. Crushers provide me with a lot of mana. Once using material above the skill limit lost its effectiveness, I was able to increase my skill by mass-producing gold daggers."
"Ingenious," Maria said. "Is this why you asked for platinum?"
"Yeah. Since there's a clear link between copper, silver, and gold, it's worth testing platinum as well."
Maria frowned. "Too bad I don't have any platinum coins remaining, we could have at least tested it."
I nodded. "True. I wouldn't say no to an even better skill."
"Maybe we can try selling a few swords. I'm sure they'll fetch a fortune," Eleanor suggested.
"No —" Maria and I responded at the same time. She chuckled as she continued. "We don't have the channels to sell them while keeping it a secret."
"How about the auction house?" Eleanor asked.
"Not really a secure channel," Maria said. "Any sufficiently strong family could pressure an auctioneer to reveal what is being sold. It's not a good method to sell things secretively."
"Alright. This is where we split, then," I said.
Eleanor nodded as she started walking away. Maria didn't follow. "Maria?" Eleanor asked.
"I don't have anything to do in the town, so it's a good time to kill some dungeon bosses and level up, don't you think?"
"Are you sure?" Eleanor asked, sounding a little frustrated. Maria nodded. "Maybe I should come with you, just in case."
"No need," Maria dismissed. "I'm sure Devon could protect me in case of any danger arising."
That made me snort. The sheer pressure she created in her anger was still vivid in my memory. And, since the dungeon was filled with mobile sources of mana, I couldn't imagine her somehow falling against any threat.
"Still, better safe than sorry, right?"
"No. You mentioned that you have important things to handle," Maria said. "We can't neglect the town."
Eleanor looked like she wanted to disagree, so I intervened. "Don't worry. I'll keep her safe … not that she needs it."
"Exactly," Maria said, smug. Eleanor looked frustrated at first, but as she looked at my face, her expression shifted to something close to mirth.
"Fine," she said. "I'll be back here in ten hours." With that, she jumped away.
"Is she gone?" Maria asked.
"Yes," I said even as I started putting the equipment in the cave I dug, making sure people couldn't stumble on it easily.
"Good," Maria said as she looked at the distance. "Dungeon Mist is really frustrating. I'm glad that I won't have to deal with it for long."
"Tell me about it," I chuckled even as I put the last item into the cave. "Trying to explore the fourth floor while my range of vision dropped below twenty yards was an experience, especially with monsters popping out endlessly."
"How did you handle it?" she said.
"I discovered that I could use the trees to push away the mist," I said.
"That's the cost of keeping everything a secret," she said. "You have to discover everything on your own."
I gave her a sheepish smile. "I have to admit I might have been a tad too obsessive with secrets," I said. "In my defense, if the wrong person learns it, I might end up locked in a comfortable prison, working all day to create weapons for them." That was if I didn't end up in a shallow grave, but that was a tad too morbid, so I didn't mention it directly.
Maria sighed. "I'm sure my conflict with my family didn't fill you with confidence either," she said.
"It did play a role," I admitted. "Now, everything is in place," I said. "We just need to swing by the outpost so I can tell Harold to start recruiting volunteers, and then we can go," I said. "Now, do you have a way to travel fast?"
She paused longer than that question deserved, which surprised me. "I do, but it's a bit wasteful in terms of mana. We don't want to stop and replenish constantly."
"Not a problem," I said even as I pulled the cart from the cave. I could have pulled her like a rickshaw driver, but I had a better idea. "Do you mind helping me with the calculations?"
"What calculations?" she asked, but she still helped me with them. After resolving a few critical design questions, I was able to link a small steam engine to the cart through several gears and a metal chain. However, most of her calculations had been used to design a more efficient steam engine than the rest of the car.
Putting a ten-ton monstrosity into a car — even a facsimile of it — was too much.
"Welcome to my automobile, milady," I said, pointing at the ugly device that didn't deserve the name of a car.
"A car, really?" she said.
"Well, if you squint hard enough," I said. "It's more like a steerable steam engine, it'll be an absolutely horrid ride as it doesn't have a suspension mechanism. For some reason, System has no spring recipe."
"Well, springs are surprisingly a modern invention. Maybe it doesn't fit the medieval concept the System seems to be in love with," I said.
Maria looked confused at my statement. "What do you mean?"
"Don't worry about it, I'm just complaining," I said, not wanting to go on a tangent about how the System was potentially affecting our perspective. Not without some concrete evidence, at least. "Now, are you ready for the ride?" I asked.
"And, how are you going to bring the car down from the top of the hill," she asked.
"Easy," I said as I grabbed it, then used the Fleeting Steps to easily scale down the hill. Admittedly, carrying the car, faster than its full speed kind of showed its relative uselessness for this use case, but the ability to design one was more important than its function.
Maria chuckled as mana flared around her, and she floated down with ease, sitting next to me. "Alright. Show me how fast it goes, then," she said.
I chuckled as I pressed the gas pedal, feeling playful. The car itself was just as slow and uncomfortable as I had expected, barely going thirty miles an hour, with a horrible fuel efficiency. But, what it represented was far more impressive.
Also, it was fun. At least, initially.