Level 1 Fallen

After selling the dragon corpses, as well as all but fifty of the highest quality gemstones, I made my way back to the trial dungeon. This time, I was determined to make my way to the final trial, and conquer this dungeon's tests.

There was no point in stopping to read the introductory texts that I had already gone through. For the first trial, my new skill allowed me to immediately receive a ten star reward, the materials harvested being of better quality than the initial corpse.

Since the target monster's level was so low, I was not surprised that this effect triggered. This also happened for the second and third trials, but then the odds began to decline sharply. If there was anything noteworthy, it was the eight star reward for these trials, which was another book. This one was called the Advanced Butcher's Encyclopedia, and contained details on even more monsters, these considered more rare than those from the other book.

Naturally, I collected all of these books as I climbed my way back through the trials. With Scavenging Mastery-X, I was guaranteed to get at least eight stars when dismantling monsters of these levels, as long as I had at least rudimentary information on the monster. Thus, in the later trials, I was able to alternate between claiming the regular book and the advanced one.

Honestly, there wasn't much suspense here, and I managed to collect the ninth and tenth volumes for both books by the end of the twenty-ninth trial. If there was anything that I found disappointing, it was that there were no treasure chests to loot. Sure, there were the rewards at every level, but I was under the assumption that there would also be chests every few trials…

Perhaps it was because this was a harvesting skill, so the possible rewards were the materials I was harvesting? Either way, I made my way to the thirtieth trial, which was the body of a level one hundred Lesser Red Dragon. It was more than twenty meters long, and five tall, even when it was collapsed on the ground.

Like the twenty-nine trials before it, I activated my Scavenging Mastery-X and took the dragon into my inventory. Supposedly, every part of a dragon was a treasure, so I was actually debating whether or not to keep the remains this time. I could potentially get a full platinum coin just from selling these components, after all.

With that goal in mind, I dismantled every part of the dragon, separating them on the workspace provided. Granted, I had to use my Martial Intent-X just to make a giant tub to hold all the blood, but I felt like it was a worthwhile use of the skill as long as I focused on the rewards I'd get when selling it all later.

The blue light scanned the materials provided, before scanning me for some reason. A reason I only discovered afterwards, when a message appeared in front of me.

My eyes went wide as I read the hidden reward. An eight star trait was nothing to scoff at. That was already considered the pinnacle of performance. Could I really resist passing up this trait? Besides… recalling Diane's goal of obtaining money in her world by harvesting and selling monster components, wouldn't this trait let me help her start doing that more quickly?

This would let me repay her for coming with me on this journey, and all the help she's given me along the way. Compared to that, a single dragon corpse wasn't really worth anything. Thus, I accepted the hidden reward.

My backpack opened, and all twenty books flew out from it, shimmering in midair as they fluttered open. The pages were pulled out of all twenty books, circling together to form a scroll, which fell at my feet. Looking at it, I confirmed that it was the trait scroll for Carrion Master, and immediately learned the trait.

After that, I was ejected from the dungeon. However… I wanted to try my luck again. If I could gather all of the books, would I be able to get a second trait for Diane? Even if she didn't want it, I could sell it for a large sum. With that thought in mind, I stepped on the teleportation circle again, focusing on the butcher trials. Unfortunately, I was met with a rather severe obstacle.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy. Even if I wasn't able to get the hidden reward a second time, just selling all of the books would have gotten me an easy three platinum. If I was able to keep running the trial like that, I could have earned essentially unlimited money.

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There were probably various safeguards in place to prevent that, like not letting any challenger take the same book more than once. Still, I took a picture of my new trait and sent the image to Diane.

…You had better not just be teasing me, Drake. Diane responded almost immediately. How'd you get it?

Not wanting to keep her waiting, I quickly typed out my answer. There were special books as the four and eight star reward for each trial, with ten of each. I got all twenty books, and I was offered the trait as a hidden reward after clearing the final trial.

After Diane read that, she quickly responded. In other words, there might be a lesser reward if you just collect all of the four star rewards. You probably won't have a chance at the eight star rewards without the appropriate master-ranked skill, and only if it was trained from scratch like yours. So I won't be able to aim for that.

Let me see how my training goes today. If it looks like I have a chance, I'll aim to get the full four star reward, even if we have to stay here for a couple weeks. If they're anything like Carrion Master, it would be worth it.

I hesitated slightly when she said that. Just watch out. From what I can tell, the final trial should require at least level thirty in its intermediate skill just to complete. Getting four stars might require thirty-five, or a lot of retesting.

That made Diane pause, understanding the implication. It might take her five or ten minutes just to brew a potion or make a single scroll. Not taking into account the mana burden involved, just the time investment would be heavy. Thus, it became a question of if it was worth it.

Following the logic of the rewards I obtained, she would at most get a four star trait. Looking at the trait of Nuoda, who had a four star Healing Affinity, that would probably increase her potion and scroll production by thirty percent. That wasn't bad by itself, allowing her to sell her potions and scrolls for a higher price, but she was never learning these skills as a primary way to make money.

Diane's reasons for learning Scroll Crafting and Alchemy were primarily for her Chosen, just so she could live out more of her magical dreams. Additionally, she wanted Alchemy to make her own poisons, but she had clearly never expected to turn a major profit with these skills. She wasn't playing to be a production-focused player like Hammerhead, after all.

Got it. She responded after a minute of thought. Let me get Scroll Crafting and Alchemy to both evolve, and learn the basics of their next skills. These skills are both easy to train on the road, anyways, so my Chosen can practice in her free time.

I nodded my head, having expected that answer from her. If we were to stay here long enough for her to train two crafting skills to nearly the master level, she would have to sacrifice a great deal of time intended for leveling up. In the worst case scenario, the next major patch might even arrive before we leave Broken Sands!

Granted, if she did choose to stay that long, I had no idea what I would do with myself to pass the time. Would I end up just taking different trials and learning various skills? Or just hunt monsters and constantly train my dismantling? Neither of those seemed particularly interesting on my end.

With that in mind, I made my way back to the Sand Viper Nest that I had cleared out earlier. Since it was connected to a dungeon, more monsters had begun to overflow, and there were about thirty vipers roaming around again. I was curious to see what the interaction between Scavenging Mastery-X and Carrion Master would look like, and needed a proper target to try it on.

Now that I wasn't worried about having my secrets discovered, I quickly slaughtered all thirty serpents without ever leaving stealth. Then, I placed all thirty serpents into my inventory with my new skill, and inspected the materials.

This time, there were no flawed gems among the drops. Instead, there were twelve normal, nine perfect, and… the remaining nine seemed to have undergone a change. They were now appraised as Earth Diamonds, with a value of one gold, which was twice as valuable as even a perfect gemstone.

For those nine serpents that had the Earth Diamonds, their other materials had similarly evolved. Instead of being classified as the remains of a Sand Viper, they were listed as Boulder Cobra parts. I had the feeling that these would be the elite monsters within the dungeon at the heart of the Sand Viper nest.

Of course, the natural question to ask at this point, at least to me, was what would happen if I used this skill on a boss corpse? Part of me wanted to dive into the dungeon to try it out, but I ultimately decided against it. It would raise too many questions if I showed up with evolved boss monster parts. The city no doubt has a record of this dungeon, and all of the possible items that drop within it.

Pushing down my curiosity, I returned to the city, content with my discoveries thus far. I had acquired a new trait which synergized remarkably well with my new skill. As far as I was concerned, this dungeon no longer held much value for me personally. My only other Utility skills were appraisal-type skills, herbalism, disguise, and… poison resistance…?

Okay, that seems like a really dumb idea. Even for me. I thought to myself, though my feet were already guiding me back to the dungeon. Once again, I paid the toll to enter, and walked to the teleportation circle. When it asked what skill I wanted to challenge… I ultimately decided to try it out. Poison Resistance.

The circle lit up, and I found myself standing in a room filled with green mist. There was no introductory book, only an immediate assault from poisonous mist. Meanwhile, a message appeared telling me that I would be graded by how long I could survive in the mist, or if I managed to fully resist it. In addition, there was no death penalty here.

…Did this really work!? Had I found a way to finally train this resistance. And what other resistance skills could I train here?

No, no, settle down. I thought to myself, sighing. Resistance skills were incredibly slow to train, even for me. They had no mana burden, and even normal players could train them by willingly exposing themselves to poison. The only advantage that I had here was that I had a healing skill to let me stay poisoned longer.

Well, at least it was something to pass the time while I waited for Diane to finish her training…