Chapter 2: Minerals.
The sound of the giant's heavy footsteps echoed through the dark passageway accompanied by the cracking sound of Leered's weapons constantly clashing together with each step he took, old and torn paintings among the stalactites and rocks that had slowly devoured what once seemed to be the halls of a marvelous castle.
"Don't you think one of your colored flames would come in handy?" - Yaga replied with a mocking tone as he wagged a finger in circles.
"Remember where we are at, even if it's a tiny flame, using the natural nexus consumes mana, I'm a warrior, and I didn't specialize in magic focused classes, it's not like I have too much to waste on our comfort" - replied Leered as he checked his most recent wounds, they had already healed, luckily for him a small health potion had proved enough to stabilize him.
"Besides, don't you think you could use some perception training, you never know when you could use a critical hit on a weak spot" - said the human to his giant friend while little by little a thread of light was distinguished ahead, they were close to the entrance to the next level of the dungeon.
"Ha, am I really listening to my greatest opponent admit to needing such a cowardly strategy?, you don't need critical hits or weak spots when you have enough strength to make any of your blows lethal! - Yaga vociferated while scratching his head and it was understandable, among the giants tribes while it was well seen to learn from a melee style of combat or focusing on the use of powerful spells, giants commonly developed a fighting style and honed it to its limit, which is why Yaga trained to develop things that favored his fighter and tank classes, neglecting things like perception or agility, things that would take their toll on him as he tripped over a huge rock which was hollow and gave in to his weight, throwing him off balance and causing him to fall.
"Remind me why didn't we just use reinforcement techniques to punch through the rock like it was smoke!" - The giant asked again, now furious.
"Because we already did that 3 dungeons ago, don't you remember it was necessary for all the platinum healers on up to use their best techniques on both, yes, bearing the weight of a mountain was great training, but we narrowly killed everyone in the group on that raid." - said Leered as he walked through the exit with Yaga joining in behind him, this new hall was curious, it wasn't as big as the one where they faced the diamond general's army, but you could tell a good fight had happened here, beast claws on the walls and huge cracks in the floor were proof of that, In the center of it all, pieces of dented and torn armor, of a beautiful golden color it seemed as if the gold they were made of had been fake just by looking at the disfigured state they were in, in the middle of the room a huge pile of armor pieces was formed as someone on the other side of the room was throwing those pieces.
"Inspection, fuck, gold king, this in dwarven lands could hardly be considered brass!" - A female voice said in annoyance just before throwing a huge war helmet which Yaga caught, it seemed to have a crown embedded in it plus a dragon shaped face shield resembling that of the great general he had defeated.
"Inspection, oh, finally!, finally something good!, come with mommy!" - said the stranger, now with joy, the sound of metal being smashed with hammers flooded the whole room, the roar and the enormous force of those blows shook the huge pile of accumulated pieces of armor until finally making it fall, revealing two familiar figures for the warriors.
A guy with reddish skin and a tail that ended in pointy tip was resting on the back of a large sleeping wolf, the face of that stranger was covered by a hat and at his sides a pair of crystal weapons could be seen, like two small hand cannons, being apparently asleep was not inconvenient for the individual because as soon as the figure of Yaga and Leered was seen behind the pile of armor the man quickly wielded one of his cannons in the direction of the warriors.
"Freeze." was all the nonchalant individual said, still with his hat over his face, lifting it slightly with the help of his tail to check who it was, under the hat a reddish horn was hidden inside the hat, a pair of predator-like eyes peeked out, there was no doubt, it was a demon that was now evaluating them, 'Oh, they are the two idiots that finished a raid by throwing the dungeon on the boss', he said to immediately drop his hat again and put the gun away.
"Nice to see you guys defeated your commander too, by the way, thanks for that welcome, Pein." - Leered said with a smile to the summoner and marksman of the group, though his attention was quickly stolen with a loud hammering as there was still one figure left to assess, right in the center of the room and on the body of what was once a commander of this dungeon now stood a small figure, a pair of huge greyish braids were shaking from side to side while on the creature's chest a dwarf was trying to pull something out of the armor chest with a pair of tongs, After a few seconds of pulling she finally managed to pull out what seemed to be a small plate of a whitish metal of blue glow, while this was happening Yaga quickly threw that helmet she was holding against the lazy demon at great speed, being the projectile destroyed just inches away from Pein by a quick shot propelled by sleepy demon.
"Nice try, mud muscles, next time it's my turn, I wonder if with those measly speed points you could do the same as me" - Pein said.
"Don't make me laugh, you lazy beet, as if your wimpy weapons could pierce the skin of the future king of giants!" - Yaga replied while slapping his chest hard.
"Jackpot, I was just saying, there must be more to this damn dungeon than just fooling stones and metals that only humans would be interested in!" said the dwarf named Anvil as she danced with her short arms up high shaking that small piece of ore like a trophy, her celebration remained like that for a few seconds until she finally noticed the burly man who was now looking at her with an expression of joy and doubt on his face.
"Oh, hello Lee, do you have any idea what this is," said the dwarf excitedly, "sacral steel, do you know how hard this is to find, do you know what it costs!!!" - said the dwarf with a pair of eyes brimming with excitement, in the dwarf's eyes you could tell by a blue glow that she had been using the skill "inspection" to find out if there was anything good among her opponents.
"From your excitement you show, I imagine it is something as valuable as hunting a huge black ice boar during the winter festival" - said Leered ignorant about those topics that do not involve combat, so he related the excitement of her friend with the value of the biggest delicacy of his hometown, although he quickly noticed the blue glow fading little by little from the dwarf's honey colored eyes, quickly grabbing her cheeks and bringing her closer to him with difficulty because despite being small, the muscle density of dwarves was higher than humans so they were very heavy "Anvil, do you remember what Claymore said about spending mana on whims? "
"Don't give me lessons, mister intensive training with mountains, unlike you I specialized in my Master creator class, so I have trained so that my stamina and mana sources are large enough" -she said while removing Leered's hand from her face with a slap.
"And don't interrupt me again, this is important, this is sacral steel, a single nugget of this material is capable of modifying the purity and capabilities of the weapons or equipment it strengthens!!!, it is said that strengthening a weapon with a single piece of this will make it a leegend worthy weapon even if it is not forged by the best blacksmith, do you have any idea how strong a weapon forged using only sacral steel is?", the dwarf said with total seriousness while now she was the one who had jumped to grab her companion's face, holding him by the beard to bring him down to the floor level with her.
"Claymore's relic weapon?" - Leered said with a grimace of pain on his face just before he was released.
"That's right, I'm not surprised he's the one with something like that, I mean, eldest son of one of the oldest and richest families in Elfinghard, who would have something like that but that rich guy." - The dwarf said as she carefully put away that valuable ore.
"[Everyone, gather on the floor of the penultimate level of the dungeon]"
It was as if a thought invaded everyone in the vanguard team at the same time, it was Claymore's voice, the leader of the group summoned them to the top floor before entering the dungeon boss area, it was time to attack with everything so the four present in that room took their things and started their way to that room.
"Como detesto la estúpida magia de comunicación astral" – decía el demonio mientras se rascaba sus puntiagudos oídos con molestia
"Anvil, pásame rápido la statstone, quiero revisar si culparé a Claymore de hacernos perder el tiempo" –dijo Yaga mientras caminaban, a lo que la enana rápidamente le lanzó un alargado cristal multicolor el cual Yaga rápidamente comenzó a estrujar con su mano.
La statstone era un tipo de piedra valiosa en el mundo por algo más que su aparentemente infinita dureza si no por sus capacidades de lectura, al entrar en contacto con un ser vivo la statstone deja de mostrar un arcoíris colorido y comienza a mostrar colores de uno en uno, aquellos que estudiaron las capacidades del mineral notaron que en función del color presente además de la intensidad y brillo del mismo la piedra representaba de manera visual las capacidades físicas y mágicas de quien la tocaba.
Azúl para la velocidad y agilidad, gris para la defensa, amarillo para la percepción, rojo para la fuerza, morado para el poder mágico, rosado para la agilidad, anaranjado para la precisión y verde para la suerte.
Al momento de que Yaga apretó el cristal una enorme luz iluminó el oscuro pasillo de escaleras destacando principalmente al momento de que el color fue rojo y gris, "¡Qué porquería ese maldito comandante no me hizo mejorar en nada!", gritó el gigante.
"Calma gigantón, el nuestro fue bastante similar, además, para una medición exacta de las estadísticas sabes bien que tienes que ir a un laboratorio de las mismas y hacer eso de la cápsula de cristal" – dijo Pein mientras ahora él tomaba el cristal para medir si es que había tenido algún crecimiento.
"¿Todos ya estarán ahí?" – preguntaba Leered
"Probablemente, Claymore le ordenó a Beo buscar alguna entrada oculta a la habitación del jefe o posibles trampas ocultas, apenas acabamos con nuestro comandante, Igra decidió ir a revisar si el grupo de Argo y Ácante estaban bien, ya sabes lo que dicen, si arrinconas a un mago está acabado." – decía la enana mientras bajaba aquellas escaleras ayudada por la luz que provocaban sus poderosos compañeros al medir sus capacidades.
"Supongo que Wado y Muramasa estarán ocupados en el equipo de contención" – decía Leered mirando al techo tras divisar el final de las escaleras.
"It stands to reason, after all, all of us Adamante rank are here, those two are the insurance of the association, if we all die down here at least there will be someone who can finish the fight on the surface." - Replied the dwarf.
"Aren't you interested to know what your level is after that commander?" - Leered said curiously.
"Ha, unlike you idiots, I don't need a number to confirm to me that this dwarf body is hard as granite, those freshly pressed gold sheets are proof enough for me, besides the wit of a blacksmith can't be counted with simple numbers." - Said the dwarf with some arrogance and satisfaction in her voice.
"We heard that" - said both the giant and the demon, they quickly threw the latter tossing the statstone to Leered, asking him to please put it away.
As they went down none of those present thought to ask Leered if he was interested in a reading, after all, not long ago in a reading center everyone had already witnessed the level of his companion, at the moment of contact with a living being the statstone takes a deep black color, after that it begins to review the statistics, the only color that the stone never showed was white, some thinked that maybe it was because whoever showed a white color would be someone with null capabilities to analyze, others believed that the crystal simply could not show it, the truth is that it was very difficult for everyone present in that reading because the brightness that the crystal capsule showed when reading Leered stats was something that mowed down each and every one of those in charge of the reading and members of the Adamante grade present there, for everyone it was impossible to see that those colors reached a level of brightness bordering almost white, that same color was the one that showed for an instant the statstone just before Leered kept it in his back pocket, a green bright that was about to become white.