Once I had learned the key features of Spencer’s new skill, I immediately canceled all my meetings for the day unless it was an actual emergency, ignoring Harold’s annoyed grumbling in the process.

But what was the point of being the King if I couldn’t even skip a meeting in the process? I was filled with excitement once I arrived at my Forge, ready to create a similar setup, and maybe even upgrade my Shaper into the next stage.

… Only for those hopes to shatter.

“Damn it. Another failure,” I growled, frustrated as I threw the shattered ingot back into the fire. I spent the whole day in front of the forge, with various attempts to copy Spencer’s skill, all met with failure, wasting my whole day in the process.

It wasn’t the failure itself that bothered me. I had been working on various experimental topics for too long to be bothered by them. The fact that I made no viable progress was slightly more annoying, but not a dealbreaker. The problem was that every attempt ended in total failure. Sometimes, very explosively.

I stared at the workbench, arms crossed, trying not to scowl as I examined the remains on the forge and the workbench, hoping that the fragments of metal would give me an idea.

The same metal that would have destroyed my face if it wasn’t for my helmet when exploded.

“What a day,” I muttered with a deep sigh. When Spencer had successfully transformed his skill, I was so sure that I could apply that to my forging. After all, wasn’t I already growing into an expert when it came to mana and skills…

The results disagreed. Vehemently.

The idea was elegant on paper. Apply the same principles of crystal etching to metal while forging, which would add spell effects to the alloy, and maybe even allow me to assist in casting. But, every single spell I tried to etch into the metal destabilized the crystal structure of the metal, turning it into ruins.

It wasn’t too bad with ordinary metal. It just weakened and deformed the metal while the runes turned useless. But, things were different when it came to alloys. Worse, I soon came to learn that, the stronger the metal was, the more spectacular the explosion.

It ended the same, even when I had used all the techniques that I had discovered in my adventures.

“Maybe it’s not a full waste,” I muttered while I tried to take a mental catalog of the possible reasons for those failures.

The most glaring possibility was the incompatibility of the process. The crystal Spencer used was a unique substance, and there was a chance that the whole approach was impossible to copy to a rigid inorganic substance like metal, any attempt shattering the ruining the internal structure of the metal, therefore letting the trapped mana loose.

I hoped that wasn’t the case, as it would mean the whole process was simply impossible. Instead, I hoped that the reason was one of the many other possibilities. The fundamental difference in etching technique, the mana purity, the side effect of Wisdom, rune selection… They could be solved, unlike a fundamental incompatibility.

I sighed. “It’s time for a long pause,” I decided, no matter how much it annoyed me. Not only did I have more practical experiments I needed to focus on, but also I needed to go back to the surface and fulfill my ‘kingly’ duties, mostly amounting to simply being seen.

A bother, but one that I had signed on. I needed to visit to see everything. But, when I opened a gate, my target wasn’t the surface, but the fifth floor, where Eleanor currently was, overseeing the dungeon hunt.

The moment I appeared, Eleanor dashed at me, her sword drawn. For any other person, it would have been a show of great fury, but for Eleanor, it was a greeting.

Well, a greeting that was reflecting her annoyance, I realized when I pulled my blade to the counter, only for her to hit hard enough to push me back. One that she needed to use her Health to empower her weapon to achieve.

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It was an interesting trick, because her ascension, which was currently in progress, meant that only her Health had been elevated, while her Strength lagged behind. It wasn’t low, but it wasn’t enough to match mine.

The reason she was able to push me back was the Health aura around her weapon. After a lot of spars, we learned that the aura had a tendency to … well, violate rules of momentum even worse than the System usually did, adding a certain presence to her attacks to compensate for her lower Strength.

It was not something she used in spars without warning.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What’s wrong?” she repeated, which made her sound more annoyed. “Is this something you need to ask after skipping yet another spar, and you didn’t even bring an apology gift.”

I sighed. “Sorry about that,” I said even as I parried another attack, but this time, deflecting the attack rather than countering it directly. “I had been hopeful about the new method, but…” I added, preparing myself for another attack.

Instead, she lowered her blade. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You don’t sound like yourself.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” she said, sounding confused. “Whenever you finish experimentation, you either walk away giddy, like a kid overdosing on candy, or you have a kind of focused intensity that makes you look…”

“Makes me look what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, though she blushed. “The important thing is that you actually look depressed. I never seen you look like that after working on one of your experiments.”

A defeated sigh escaped me. “Because it was a big failure,” I admitted. “I was so confident that I had the last piece of it, but it went very differently than I expected.”

“I see…” she replied. “We can do something else, if you want.”

“No,” I replied and closed in the distance, swinging my blade in a devastating blow that would have killed a weaker opponent, but Eleanor parried with ease. “Actually, a spar might be exactly what I need to burn my frustration.”

“That, I can help with,” Eleanor replied. She countered, and then we fell into a rhythm of battle as we danced around each other, each blow dodged, parried, countered. But, that felt unsatisfying, so I started letting her blows slip my guard, using the opportunity to counter-attack.

“Nasty,” Eleanor called, but with her smile growing, there was no heat in her voice.

It was a simple strategy, but not an easy one, especially against an opponent of her mobility. Even without relying on her ascended abilities, she was faster than me. I barely delivered a blow for every five I received, a great disadvantage that would have eventually spelled my doom if I tried to pull that against an ascended.

Naturally, it would have been the time I put my near-infinite mana to play, but there was no harm in pushing my sword abilities to a new level. The skill was maximized, but that wasn’t everything.

“So, how’s things in the dungeon front?” I asked once we got used to the new rhythm.

“A mixed bag,” she replied. “It’s a good thing that the corruption is drained, but without it, the leveling bonus for the dungeon had dropped significantly. We are once again unable to push people over fifty with dungeon, which slows our military growth.”

“A necessary compromise,” I responded. “That mysterious dark energy … it’s not good news.”

“Maybe, but it’s pretty utilitarian,” she said. “At least both dungeons once again started producing bosses, which helps to raise some of the elites near the target, and the rest could be handled by some outdoor hunting.”

“That must be simpler with proper military support,” I said.

“For certain,” she said. “Having a mobile fortress with enough armament to deal with a small beast wave alone is a godsend.”

”Too bad tanks and cannons doesn’t register as an attack to the System, or things would have been much easier.”

“It’s better this way,” Eleanor responded. “Otherwise, people would have grown too soft. It’s not something you want in a military force. Without practicing against beasts, they can’t fight against a bigger beast wave.”

“Do you think our walls wouldn’t be enough?” I questioned.

“Eventually, yes,” she said. “One day, our luck would run out, and we’ll come across a beast wave migrating from a mana-rich zone, or worse, the sea,” she replied. “Not only their numbers are endless, but even the weakest is as strong as one of those lizard bosses. That day, we would have to fight in melee, trying to kill the beast that controls the beast wave before the whole area is buried.”

“It would be a dangerous encounter,” I said.

“You never visited an environment teeming with beasts, did you?” she asked despite knowing the answer. I nodded. “We live in a dangerous world,” she responded. “Don’t let the calm fool you.”

Before I could respond with a swing of my blade, I was distracted by a sudden increase in the mysterious energy the dungeon started to absorb from the environment. A glimpse to the surface showed that there were several signals raised at the gate.

“We need to go to the surface. We have an emergency,” I said.

“Did I jinx us?” she asked.

I gave her a sardonic sigh while a gate popped in front of us. “Seems that way.” When we returned to the surface, I had been expecting another crystalline attack.

Instead, I found myself looking at some kind of corrupted creature, flying at high altitude, already retreating. But, my focus was the aftermath of what was left in the sky. A dark red energy, one that reminded me of the heretics, illuminating the source of the beast.

I had a very bad feeling about it.