Chapter 245 - Covering The Bases (1)

"About that, there is something you need to know," Celia said. "A lot more crystals appeared in the last week in this world."

"I suppose some annoying bastards took notice that a lot of overlords were defeated or left this world and they are planning to take advantage of that," Luke said.

"Send groups of ten to those areas and make them slowly deal with the spawned monsters until the crystals aren't that hard to reach and destroy," Rina said. "We can't let them grow bigger and have more than five hundred of them guarding the crystal. However, do not destroy them. Use this chance to grow stronger."

Luke nodded. It seemed that Rina was improving her way of thinking as of late regarding how to deal with the enemies. Maybe staying in the dark elves' world for a few days helped with that. Still, Luke didn't notice any changes in Shalia's behavior, even though she stayed there for two months. Luke knew that she was headstrong, but…

"Are all the bows finished?" Luke asked.

"The crafters are being careful not to waste any material, so only fifty of those are ready," Celia replied. "We are doing some tests to see those who have more aptitude with the bows."

Luke nodded again. While those rare bows increased their magical power and speed, it would be better to put them on reliable hands. Nevertheless, after checking the progress and how much they had recovered in the next few days, Luke began to think of their next steps.

First of all, they needed a mobile fortress. While they didn't have time or the resources to get one yet, they could always take from a defeated foe. While they also wouldn't be able to use all the features, it was fine. Luke just needed them to transport tons of people for their mobility and capacity. However, they would need to select the right target to do that.

"We also need to check the current positions of the overlords, the size of their armies and their current power before launching our attack," Luke said to his friends.

"Leave that to me, I have higher mobility among this group and if something happens, I can easily disappear from the enemies' sight," Richter said.

"If you say so," Luke said. "Your true goal is to keep fighting and getting stronger, right? So at least mind the places where you will fight, make the enemies think that the other overlords are up to something instead of us."

"That will be easy," Richter said.

"Don't get carried away," Rachel said and then landed a chop on her little brother's head.

"Once you find a suitable target, return to us and we will work together to get their mobile fortress, we can't take any chances against those enemies, so we will need to be fast and precise."

"Got it, I will depart as soon as I finish my preparations," Richter said.

Rachel wanted to help, but she knew that her skills weren't appropriate for that kind of job. Besides, Richter would need more mana to cover for her with his skills. Regardless, Rina said that things in the continent's central area were quite troublesome since it was the first area the monsters and the first overlords appeared. It was hard to imagine that they would keep hiding outside the planet after so long, even more so considering that several overlords in the north had disappeared. So, they probably will give them the chance to attack since they are probably working to strengthen themselves and their soldiers.

In any case, Luke couldn't prepare as much as he wanted without getting the Intel about their next targets. So, he quickly found himself bored. Since they had their mana pool connected, they could travel between those three worlds quite fast, but Luke didn't think that working on three fronts was the best idea right now. So, without having anything better to do, Luke decided to use his skills and make them level up outside combat. Not only did he need those status points, but he also felt that his skills were falling behind. Weapon Augmentation was an exception due to its rank. Still, the others were only useful against small fries or in very specific situations. It was a given that all his skills wouldn't be useful against all types of enemies, but relying on them situationally wasn't good either.

While he was practicing his physical skills, Luke wondered how he could combine them with others. He had some combos like Fury Punches and Heavy Strike, but he felt like he needed more diversity, the same as he had with his elemental spells. Besides, his combos of physical skills only worked on single targets.

"I suppose having a combo of physical skills that work in several targets would be too much… that would require tons of stamina, even if it is possible," Luke thought.

Luke decided to check the shop for some cheap skills books that wouldn't consume much of his SP, but as expected, he didn't find anything that met his criteria. The best he found was a skill that hit several enemies in an area nearby the first target hit by it. Luke was facing many big opponents as of late, so maybe that wouldn't do it.

In the end, Luke spent eight thousand coins in Martial Arts, a skill that increased the power of his attacks when not using weapons. He also bought another passive skill, which was called Focus. The more Luke punches or kicks an enemy without suffering any damage, his attacks would make one more point of damage per level and per subsequent hit.

"This kind of skill would be perfect for an agility based build, but it should help me defeat small fries faster," Luke nodded to himself.. "Besides, it will also help me recover stamina faster since punches and kicks deal less damage since I am not using appropriate weapons for that kind of fighting style."