Vol. 1 - Ch. 14 - Looking for a Blue Attribute Stone

As soon as they entered the small room, four Goblin Fighters attacked them all at once. After Ash dispatched the Fighter with his stiletto, a group of monsters with sharp fangs, pounced on him.These monsters were called Sahuagin. They were monsters with the body of a fish that had arms and legs. The trident in the Sahuagin's hand thrust out with great vigor, while the scales that covered its body gleamed.

Ash quickly caught the spear with his swordbreaker and lifted it upward.  He then closed the distance with the Sahuagin and thrust his stiletto into the monster's soft belly.

The Sahuagin let go of its spear and fell backward.

All the bodies lying around the room disappeared without a sound.

"These rooms are as chaotic as always." Ash muttered as he put his weapons away.

After which Clara entered the small room.

She was dumbfounded as she looked at the inside of a small room that had been cleaned up.

"You really are amazing, Ash..."

"What's with the praise all of a sudden?"

"This is the 6th Floor, you know?! You wouldn't normally climb this fast." Clara explained.

The two of them were currently ascending the Blue Tower.

Unlike the Red Tower, the Blue Tower's walls were all blue.

Perhaps because the color was reminiscent of water, it felt slightly cooler.

There were some new species of monsters, like the Sahuagin, but there were also ones Ash had encountered before, like Goblins and Direwolves.

(Perhaps these two appear in the first 10 floors of all towers.) Ash pondered.

However, they were not exactly the same. The monsters in the Blue Tower attacked with ice arrows and ice breath, which were associated with the tower's attributes.

"W-Were you an assassin or something?" Clara asked timidly while looking at Ash's stiletto.

This was probably because in some regions the dagger was considered a symbol of an assassin.

"Rest assured, my principle is that I will not murder."

As soon as Ash responded a Sahuagin, holding a spear, jumped out at Clara from behind her. Ash immediately picked up his whip and flicked the monster's spear. He then leapt at the Sahuagin and thrust his stiletto into the monster's chest.

As the Sahuagin faded away, Ash looked back and shrugged.

"Though I have no gripes about killing monsters."

"T-Thank you." Clara replied.

She smiled a little as if she had been slightly taken aback, but then something occurred to her.

"You're bleeding!"

Ash hadn't noticed until Clara pointed it out, but there was a cut on the back of his right hand.

He must have gotten it when he'd brushed past the Sahuagin's scales.

In any case, the wound was shallow.

Leaving it alone wouldn't have been a problem, but Clara apparently didn't think so.

She held up her staff and closed the wound using Heal.

"Thanks. But how's your Mana holding up? You've been using it non-stop."

"It's fine. To be honest, I have more than enough."

One had to use the Mana that saturated the world in order to wield Magic.

Each person had a different capacity for holding Mana, and this capacity dictated how fit they were to use Magic. One could cast stronger spells and cast them in greater numbers the more Mana they possessed.

Mana was replenished over time, but the amount regained was minimal, thus one had to be careful not to exhaust all of their Mana in a single battle. Additionally, since Mana was strongly linked to life force, it was easy to tell at a glance when it was about to be depleted.

Clara showed no sign of this at all.

On the contrary, she was full of life.

Ash figured that she most likely had considerably more Mana than your average person.

"Still, my Heal isn't very effective, so I don't want to rely on it too much."

Hearing Clara say that a question popped into Ash's mind.

"I was wondering, how does Magic work on Dural Island? It's different from the Magic outside, right?"

Essentially, Magic was learned through long years of practice.

There was an exception in the form of <Inherent Abilities> that were passed down from parents to children, but other than that, there were few people who could use Magic. Thanks to this, Mages and Healers were considered rare.

Amidst these circumstances, Clara explained that it was her staff that allowed her to use Magic.

"Simply put, there are Magic Stones that can activate certain spells. You can activate these stones by embedding them in specific tools. Staves are used for Healing Magic, bracelets for Offensive Magic, rings for Auxiliary Magic, and so on."

"From listening to you talk, Magic seems to come in various different types."

"Yes, I've heard there are a lot. And they don't just differ from tower to tower. Each floor may drop a different Magic Stone."

"Why do you speak of it as though it doesn't affect you?"

"Well I've only got a Heal Magic Stone..." Clara blurted out in embarrassment.

"Did you get it from the White Tower? That's the image I get when I hear Heal."

"That's right. I was lucky enough to get it from my first monster. Quite amazing, don't you think?!"

Clara put on her best face and showed a peace sign with her fingers.

She didn't know the exact odds, but she believed that she must have been tremendously fortunate.

"Then do Magic Stones get stronger if you embed the same one, just like the Enhancement Stones?"

"No. If you want to increase a Magic Stone's power you have to embed Attribute Stones of the same color."

"Then in order to power up your Heal we need White Attribute Stones, correct?"

"That's right!"

"Magic users seem to be way more dependent on Magic Stones and Attribute Stones than those in the vanguard."

"I agree. For us it depends on how many stones you can gather."

Nevertheless, there was no doubt that strengthening one's weapons was important for those in the vanguard as well.

Ash was painfully aware of this after losing his weapons the day before.

Before coming to Dural Island, Ash had viewed equipment as secondary, with the priority given to improving physical capabilities, but now he knew he had to change his approach.  He realized that now he needed to prioritize enhancing his equipment just as much as his skill, if not more.

After a bit Ash left the room alongside Clara and they continued forward.

As they proceeded down the passageway, monsters constantly appeared from the back.

Ash mercilessly slaughtered the monsters using the stiletto and swordbreaker.

"Sorry for bringing this up now, but thanks for tagging along with me from the 1st Floor." Ash said.

"It's fine. I'd only reached the 5th Floor anyway. A-And besides, I usually hunt on the 1st Floor..." Clara said in a fading voice.

Ash thrust the stiletto into the mouth of a Sahuagin in front of him, and the wailing Sahuagin soon vanished.

He then looked back towards Clara, while keeping a wary eye on the road in front.

"By yourself?"

"Yes. Though it was really tough for me, so I ended up using the big entrance door. I'd open the door just a bit for a Goblin to peek their head through and once they did I'd smack them with my staff."

"That sounds like a pain."

"T-That's the only way I could hunt!"

Ash was surprised that Clara had managed to challenge the Tower of Trials with such an approach.

From their battles so far, it was easy for Ash to imagine that Clara hadn't ascended the Tower of Trials alone.

He figured she was most likely accompanied by an excellent companion.

(I wonder what her companion is doing now...)

Suddenly, three monsters jumped at them from a corner behind them.

The monsters rushed in with a Sahuagin in the center of the group and one Goblin Fighter on each side.

The narrow passage made them difficult to avoid.

"Clara! Stay close to me and run as fast as you can!"

"Wh- O-Okay!"

Ash ran forward as fast as he could.

Directly in front of him was the Sahuagin's spear.

If he kept going he'd be skewered, but Ash wouldn't let that happen.

He got as close as he could and jumped, leaping into the air and stepping on the spear, knocking it to the ground.

Using this momentum, he kicked the Sahuagin, knocking it down. Immediately after that he repelled the two Fighters' swords that came at him from both sides and ran past. He immediately turned around and saw Clara following as instructed.

She followed after him, stepping on the Sahuagin's stomach and face, and accidentally hitting the two Goblins' necks with the two ends of her staff.

"Whoa!"

Clara exclaimed as she suddenly stopped. The Goblins were then released from her staff and fell, tumbling to the ground. The shock they received was so great that they ended up turning into currency.

"I ended up killing them."

"So you did have it in you."

"I-It was just luck!" Clara said with an embarrassed smile.

Behind her one could see the Sahuagin slowly begin to disappear.

After the duo made sure that there weren't any other monsters in the area

Ash tucked away his weapons and took a deep breath.

"Let's pick up from earlier. Given that you were hunting at the entrance there should have been newcomers passing through, right? Couldn't you have asked them to team up?"

"I could have but..."

"Did they turn you down?"

"I-I would've been nervous with just the two of us!" Clara exclaimed.

Her response made Ash involuntarily look up.

(She should've learned how to talk to people before trying to climb the towers...)

"But you teamed up with me, no?"

"I wouldn't call this teaming up. You basically forced this onto me, Ash."

"I can't deny that."

Even though Clara was saying that, she didn't come off as nervous at all.

(If I wasn't that pushy she wouldn't have opened up though.) Ash thought to himself.

"But still-"

Ash put his hand on the pouch and mouthed it, feeling its lightness.

"I didn't expect we'd be this unlucky."

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