Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

While some people didn't learn much after the end of the world, others learned a bit too much. While Leon agreed that to survive, one must do everything in its power, he could only see ectoplasm as a dreadful thing. After hearing from Ren that many alliances were interested in obtaining that for war purposes, Leon confirmed that. Even the Emperor was stocking the ectoplasm in case his country gets invaded. Ectoplasm was even more useful than poison…

"I'm going to the dungeon… I hope you bring those workers before dark." Leon said.

"Got it." Ren nodded.

Although Leon wanted to trust Makoto, he decided to keep hidden the things he could do as much as possible. In the worst-case scenario, he would need a lot of hidden cards. So, he left Tokyo on foot, and only after making sure he was alone, he flew using an earth platform.

The harpies' dungeon wasn't that far, so he didn't fly for long. Although he was an unknown person, the manager of the dungeon had already received word about who he was and what Makoto said to him. Some people complained since they registered themselves to use the dungeon at noon, but not for long. It was an order coming from the Emperor, after all.

Leon entered the dungeon and recalled the information he got from Ren earlier; harpies were a troublesome enemy because their dungeon was pretty wide, and they could fly at unbelievable speeds inside of it. Not only that, they always moved into groups, and they could use magic to attack too. Their wind magic could easily split rocks in two. However, since they moved in groups and focused on high-speed movements while attacking from a distance, Leon noticed their weakness. The harpies weren't that sturdy. It was the same for Leon, even though no one aside from him knew it.

Considering their high speed, Leon decided to create steel spears and a steel plate to block the enemies' attacks. Considering his recovery rate, he could control four objects without running out of mana, but that was more than enough to defeat those monsters. The harpies were fast, but they couldn't escape from Leon's spears, which he trained for years.

"Mmm… I don't know what parts of their bodies can be used, so I should focus my attacks in their hearts."

After killing the first harpies, Leon approached and noticed they are quite ugly. All harpies were female, but they had rat-like faces, and they were also bald. They barely had the height of an adult, and their bodies were rather slim, to the point one could think they were about to die of starvation. Regardless, each harpy gave Leon ten coins, which was enough to buy a single potion that would let him restore twelve points of mana. That being said, he would only use that later.

When Ren arrived at the dungeon, it was already 04:00 PM. It took him a lot more time to find the workers that Leon wanted, but at least he found fifty. Leon entered the dungeon and immediately saw thousands of dead harpies aligned near the walls. He gave the order to the workers to gather the harpies' wings, and he went to look for Leon, only to find him at the end of the path of corpses… playing with a small piece of ice.

"Did you have enough hands to pick what is useful from the harpies' bodies?" Leon asked after he looked behind for a second.

"… I thought about using half of the workers to transport the materials and the other half to gather the wings…" Ren scratched the back of his head. "But now the workers that I bought can only be used to gather the wings."

"What are the wings used for?" Leon asked.

"If you make a weapon touch it, it can absorb the wing and make that weapon have the properties of the wind for one hour," Ren explained. "It is useful to increase the power of melee weapons."

"And it is useless to me…" Leon made a disappointed expression. "What do you think is better, find more workers and transport the wings to Tokyo or sell them to the survivors outside?"

"I doubt the survivors outside have that many coins…" Ren frowned. "But if I talk with their leaders, I should be able to sell them quite fast."

"The coins you will obtain… is one-third of them enough to pay the workers?" Leon asked.

"It certainly is," Ren answered.

"Then use one-thirds of the coins to pay the workers, you can keep other one third, and with the remaining coins, you will buy mana potions and bring them to me," Leon said. "You alone bring the potions, don't let anyone approach me."

"… Is there a reason for that?" Ren asked.

"Yes, I will learn a few more skills, and I want to keep them as a secret," Leon answered. "You can understand the reason for that, right?"

"Yes, but do you intend to practice here?" Ren frowned. "What about the harpies? Isn't it better to clear the dungeon first?"

"I already did; did you really think all these monsters were inside the dungeon?" Leon asked. "I attacked the crystal, and hundreds of them came. By the way, the corpses of the big harpies should be among the pile, but don't take that outside yet. I want everyone outside, thinking that I'm still clearing the dungeon."

"… Okay." Ren said after recovering from the surprise.

Ren already knew that Leon was full of surprises, but to think that he could clear a dungeon alone in half a day was close to absurd, much less attacking the crystals to obtain loot was close to madness. Regardless, Leon was eager to return home, and he probably wouldn't try to bit more than he can chew. Not when he was so close to going back home… rather than that, Ren thought if he shouldn't do the same and spend his coins and potions to train his magic, he also wanted to obtain the power to clear a high-leveled dungeon by himself.