In the end, Leon had to give up on creating several spears of the same element to attack the golems who had an elemental weakness against that said element… but only for a while. It wasn't exactly the way he wanted to control them, but by putting his earth around the weapon, he could control it as if he has infused his mana or as if he was using telekinesis. Of course, the power and speed behind his attacks weren't the same, but it would help Leon to conserve his mana until he reaches the dungeon and buys more potions. In his current state, he could barely defeat three golems without running out of mana.
Congratulations! The skill Fire Resistance has leveled up.
You obtained 01 status points.
"I thought I would be able to train my resistances, but… I was too naïve. It looks like I'm a glass cannon much frailer than I thought…"
If thunder golems didn't like to approach their enemies since they would become easy targets once they use their high-speed movement skill, magma golems were the inverse. They wanted to get close, and Leon could barely endure the heat they transmitted when they were ten meters away. Things were getting better little by little thanks to the dragon hearts, but soon they would end, and Leon would return to his predicament. He was in a world in which the monsters were more dangerous than the ones on Earth, after all.
Still, if covering their bodies with water and freezing it to kill them wasn't good enough, Leon had his Ice Pillars to do the trick… that being said, the mana he saved using those skills was small.
"This is annoying since I can't advance like always… but I can see this is a good place to train my spells."
Although the steel golems were the most resilient ones, they didn't cause many problems to Leon. He could block their projectiles with his staff and causing damage to them was pretty simple, Leon just had to create a fireball of the same size and wait for them to melt. Still, that wasn't nearly enough. He was training all his skills related to manipulation, transformation, and creation, but since those were already at high levels, he wasn't obtaining that many free status points.
"I need to create more spells and practice them… the problem is, the more options I have, the less time I will be able to train each of them. I can easily imagine myself facing a troublesome enemy and not having the means to defeat it because I choose quantity over quality. What a pain…"
Truth to be told, Leon knew that he could easily solve the problem of dealing with the golems, he just has to create amulets and rings that increase the power of his elemental attacks. But that wasn't solving the problem. It was just doing a half-assed job. The same thing could be applied to his current actions; strengthening himself wasn't only increasing his mana and intelligence… Leon needed powerful spells to make his status shine.
"In the end, I can't just choose either of the options…"
To avoid that kind of trouble, Leon could buy tomes in the store of simple spells. However, since their cooldowns were longer than the spells Leon learned himself, it was hard to train… he had to wait between uses. Besides, Leon would literally spend coins to buy spells he would never use in combat since those spells were way less efficient.
"I need to learn some sort of time magic… that way, I will increase the speed of my training, and I will learn new spells faster. I will also have more time to practice the same spells and put them at decent levels."
That was already in the list of Leon's goals, but just everything else in that list, Leon had no idea how to learn the principles of such magic. Maybe finding some clues of teleportation magic in the city above was impossible, but Leon was hoping that things were different about things like time-magic and support-magic.
Anyway, to speed up things a little bit and to save some coins, Leon decided to make magic items and use them to restore his mana later. He was still hoping that all his problems would be magically solved the very moment a teleportation tome appears on the dungeon shop, and to buy it. Leon would need a lot more coins. Besides, there was always a small chance that Leon would hit the jackpot and create a magic item that could be compared to the rings he gave to his friends… one could only hope.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Wind Lance.
Cost: 20 mana
You obtained 01 status points.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Fire Lance.
Cost: 20 mana
You obtained 01 status points.
A few days passed while Leon camping nearby the elemental golems' dungeon, Leon was diligently leveling up his skills, but he also tried to learn new ones. Although he didn't create any magic item that could satisfy his standards, things were going well until he started to feel some discomfort.
"Am I sick or something?"
Leon's current lifestyle couldn't be considered healthy. He was only eating meat and drinking water he could produce. Besides, several weeks had passed since he had seen sunlight. Adding to all that the poisoned mist that was always covering that destroyed city, it wasn't that surprising that Leon could get sick. Still, he felt like the origin of the discomfort wasn't because of the environment or because of his circumstances… his instincts were telling him that he was being watched.
"I guess despite being a mage, that kind of sense can grow naturally, even without being considered a skill by the system. Four years alone on that island changed me in many ways that I didn't notice…"