For the rest of the day, I decided to simply make myself useful for the residents of Fallcry. We didn’t have a farm or anything, so our food reserves would rely on trade once we got the funds from Diane. I couldn’t just ask for us to use the farm that Aetra’s village managed, since it wasn’t meant to be able to sustain a population dozens of times larger than that very village.
Thus, I went to Ennolf’s restaurant, and ‘trained’ my Create Meal skill through the use of a wand. Although they couldn’t request specific meals, the fact that everyone could receive food for free seemed to lift their spirits somewhat. Also, I was only a single level away from evolving this skill, so I was happy for the excuse to just spam it for a while.
Ennolf watched from nearby, occasionally asking for details about the skill and the food that it provided. Apparently, his own Create Bread was almost ready to evolve, so he wanted to make sure he understood this upgraded variant. When I asked him, he told me that it took about a minute for him to be able to recover after each cast of Create Bread, so it wasn’t something that he could frequently train.
It took two more days before Diane was able to secure some funds from the first round of the auctions. As she had planned, the majority of the money was going to be deposited into the nation’s treasury, to be used as needed. As for inviting Hammerhead, she told me that she had already sent him the message, but it was taking him some time to pack up his shop.
Either way, we continued to loot the Shrine of Greed during this time, steadily increasing the stock that Diane was able to sell while we waited for the profits to come in. And then, finally, as I was getting ready to head out and start my morning ‘training’ at Ennolf’s restaurant, Diane poked her head out of her room. Her brand was already lit up, so I looked over at her curiously.
“I just got the first batch of funds.” She said, opening a window to trade. “The auction house helped me convert some of the money I earned into platinum. You said that it was fifty platinum for a resource dungeon, right?”
When I nodded my head, a trade window appeared in front of me, Diane sending me fifty platinum. Looking at this money, I couldn’t help but hesitate. “They don’t use anything like the old gold farms, do they?” I questioned, but Diane shook her head with a knowing look.
“Nothing like that, don’t worry. There are a lot of people that want to convert their own gold or platinum into player currency, so they sell it to the auction house, which lets them sell it back to other players. A few high-level craftsmen or gatherers can earn quite a lot of money. It would take thousands of people gold farming to try to match the efficiency of just one high level player, so those farms started dying out a while ago.” She assured me, and I accepted the trade with a sigh of relief.
“Let me just take care of breakfast, and then I’ll look into spawning this dungeon.” I promised, before turning to leave again, with Diane following me back to the restaurant. There was already a crowd gathering, knowing that today was probably going to be the last day for a while that I would be able to provide meals like this.
I spent about an hour and a half providing food for everyone in the city. As I was nearing the end of the line, however, my Create Meal skill finally evolved. In its place was the Create Feast-X skill. For the most part, this upgrade was rather normal. All it did was increase the complexity of the meal, and the number of meals that it could produce with a single cast.
When I told Diane, Bella, and Ennolf about this evolution, they agreed that we’d need to experiment with it before we left the city to explore. But first, there was the matter of the resource dungeon to take care of.
Standing atop the city wall, where I could have a proper view of the surroundings, I selected the option to purchase the resource dungeon. Bella and Diane waited next to me, their own eyes scanning the surroundings to look for any change.
“Over there!” Bella suddenly shouted, pointing towards the west. At the edge of the forest biome, a pair of trees seemed to spontaneously combust, their leaves bursting into flames and falling as ash to the ground. Between the two trees, a dark, smoky portal appeared.
Thankfully, we were high enough to be able to see all the way to the forest, or we would have had to go searching. I held my hands out to the duo, who quickly grabbed on and braced themselves. A moment later, we were standing in front of the portal.
“So, if this isn’t a butchery dungeon, how are we going to tell its level?” Bella asked curiously. “Are you able to appraise the level of materials?”
“I’m not sure.” I answered honestly. “If it’s an herbalism dungeon, I might be able to figure it out based on the tier of the herbs. Otherwise, we’ll just wait and see.”
As I said that, the three of us walked into the portal. Beyond the portal was a smoking forest, more than half the trees ablaze. However, these trees weren’t being consumed by the fire, but rather seemed to be generating it. As for the trees that weren’t burning, they had an almost metallic sheen beneath their bark.
“So, definitely a logging dungeon.” Diane spoke up flatly while I appraised the two types of trees. “It’ll probably be good to get building materials, as long as they don’t keep burning…”
“The burning ones are called Forgewood, and the others are Ten-Year Ironwood. I’m not sure what their age has to do with it, but it was included in the appraisal result.” I reported, and the duo nodded their heads.
“What now?” Bella asked, looking around. “There aren’t any monsters for us to fight here, or any chests to open. Do we just go back and report?”
However, it was Diane that answered, shaking her head. “Since it’s a logging dungeon, we need to make sure that we have people capable of cutting the trees down. I doubt any of the residents of Fallcry are capable of it. At least, not without severely damaging the trees. Which means that we’ll need to use the chimerae. But, at the same time, they won’t get nearly as much benefit out of doing so without the appropriate skill, which means…” She trailed off, looking at me.
With a sigh, I nodded my head, projecting a golden axe into one hand. “Which means I need to get a logging skill that I can give them via a quest. Thankfully, this dungeon should be relatively safe. I’m not seeing any particular hazards, aside from the flaming trees, but it should be easy enough to avoid taking damage from them.”
As I said that, I walked over to one of the trees that wasn’t on fire. While I could just put the tree directly into my inventory with my new construction skill, that wouldn’t help me get the skill I needed here. So, I braced myself, and began swinging my axe manually to chop down the tree.
The moment my projected axe hit the Ten-Year Ironwood tree, I felt my entire arm go numb. The axe seemed to tremble in my hands, barely making a dent in the tree. My eyes widened, hastily casting my recovery skill as I felt a soreness in my arms. “Okay… these trees are either very high level, or have a really high durability. Or both.”
“Are you alright?” Bella asked in concern. I simply nodded my head, swinging the axe again. With my control over my body and the projected energy, it was easy for me to repeatedly hit the same position. However, I had to stop to heal myself every time I swung, making very little progress at first. Given that this tree was about two meters in diameter, it was going to take me a while to get through it like this…
“Try a saw.” Diane suggested after seeing how difficult this task was. “A normal saw probably wouldn’t be able to damage this tree, but your projected one should. And it still counts as a logging technique.”
I nodded my head in agreement, switching the axe out for a long saw. To properly use it, I deployed a Ki Clone to grab one end. There were still painful vibrations running through the saw, but we were able to cut through the tree much more quickly. And by that, I meant that it ‘only’ took us half an hour of continuous sawing before the tree started to creak, falling off to the side.
That said… I didn’t get the logging skill after one tree, so I moved on to the next, repeating the process. This time, I chose a Forgewood tree, placing the edge of the saw along the side of the tree while my clone and I braced ourselves to begin.
However, as soon as we started working, we immediately noticed two major differences between the different trees. First, these trees were not as hard to cut down. They were still far tougher than I would have expected, but only about half as strong as the Ten-Year Ironwood. On the other hand… they released a powerful blast of fire as soon as they were damaged. With the first cut, we barely pierced through the bark, but it already released a fireball that blew my clone back, and scorched the front half of my body.
I staggered back with a hiss, rapidly healing myself until I was recovered. The girls ran over in alarm as the flames died down, checking to make sure I was okay. “I’m fine… but make a note, the burning trees are not to be cut without taking the proper precautions.”
There were still flames leaking out of the small cut I made on the tree, but they were much smaller than their initial burst. To avoid being killed in a dungeon that didn’t even have a single monster, I decided to finish my training on the Ironwood trees.
It took another hour, felling two more trees before I finally got the basic Logging skill. As soon as I had the skill, we immediately left this dungeon, making our way towards Aetra’s village. When we arrived, we saw several chimerae taking up arms, making their way out of the southern gate of the village, with Elder Aetra herself at the lead.
“What’s going on?” I asked curiously, getting their attention. Aetra nodded her head, walking over to explain.
“Some trees just south of the village were set ablaze, so we held a meeting. Now, we’re going to investigate if a new type of monster appeared.” She said in a serious tone.
I blinked, clearing my throat awkwardly. “Ah. I don’t think you need to worry about that. We just came from there. That area marked the appearance of a dungeon. Dungeons are an isolated space for Players and the like. Most of them have monsters, but this one just has some trees.”
When the warriors of Aetra’s village heard that, they looked between us and the distant burning trees in confusion. Aetra herself arched a brow. “Just trees? What makes this dungeon so special, if it merely has trees within a forest?”
I hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain it, but thankfully Diane stepped in. “This is a resource dungeon. The materials within will regrow at a rapid pace. Additionally, these aren’t normal trees like the rest of the forest. There are two varieties, known as Ironwood and Forgewood. The Ironwood trees have durability akin to metal, and the Forgewood trees erupt in flames when damaged.”
“Among the players in Fallcry, nobody currently has the raw strength necessary to harvest these trees, aside from Drake himself. And even that took far longer than it should have. As such, we were on our way to your village to propose a cooperation.”
Aetra turned her head to look at Diane, seeming intrigued. “What sort of cooperation did you have in mind?”
“Ever since the dungeon first appeared, we’ve been working in it to get Drake a Logging skill that he could give to your people via quests. While you don’t strictly need the skill to cut down the trees, it will no doubt increase efficiency. Additionally, aside from the Forgewood tree’s flames, there are no dangers in this dungeon. Thus, I propose that the people of your village harvest these trees, and sell them to the city of Fallcry.”
“Doing this will open up a stream of revenue for your village. You can use these funds to request new equipment or other necessary supplies as needed. For the price of the trees, you’ll need to discuss it with the Chancellor of Fallcry, Nuoda Fallow.”
Aetra watched Diane for a long moment, then turned to look at me silently, as if trying to read something from our expressions. Afterwards, she turned to nod at her warriors. “Two of you, go grab the axes. Let us investigate this ‘resource dungeon’.” She said, before turning to regard me again. “If you wouldn’t mind handing out the quests. It shouldn’t be a problem for us to complete it on our own.”
I nodded, having already made a basic quest to cut down one tree. As I sent the quest to Aetra and the other warriors, I couldn’t help but ask. “Have you tried making any quests of your own, to spread the skills I taught before?”
Aetra shook her head. “It would appear that we can accept quests, but not give them.” She said, a mild hint of annoyance in her tone. I could understand her frustration, given that this made the chimerae reliant on either Fallen allies of Players, or skill books that those Players provided in order to learn new abilities.
