Chapter 209: Visiting An Old Friend

Aliandra

Ali put the finishing touches on her newest teleportation circle and watched in satisfaction as her domain mana surged through the electrum she had embedded into the stone. Her collection of circles was growing. Her memorization of the Volle locus hadn’t been quite perfect, but it was nothing that a quick trip to Professor Addlestone in the Novaspark Academy of Magic couldn’t fix. Now she had an easy way to go visit Naia.

Happy with her work, she flew up to the upper floor of the library, dodging the swooping golden glitter dragonets who wanted to play, looking for Mato. With Calen and Malika away in Ciradyl, she didn’t want to leave him by himself without any warning.

She alighted beside the couch, finding him sitting there chatting with Lira.

“Hi, Lira, Mato,” she said.

“Hi, dear. Mato was just telling me about the new dungeon infecting my forest.”

The way she said ‘my forest’ referring to the desolate blighted wasteland that remained, caught her attention.

“Are you ok, Lira?” she asked, concerned by the sadness in her eyes.

“I had hoped that when the blight faded, we would be able to replant my forest. Even if it takes a long time, I would see it restored. Now this…”

The way her aunt’s voice hitched made her heart do the same.

“I will help you find a way to restore the forest,” she said. It was a promise she had no idea how to keep, but she would find a way. At least she knew the first task – they already planned on tackling the dungeon that Calen had found taking over the area.

“Thank you, dear,” Lira said, smiling at her. “What were you so busy with down there among the roots of the tree?”

“I was making a new teleporter to Volle. I was thinking of paying a visit to Naia.”

“Your slime dungeon friend?” she asked. “It’s been a while since you saw her.”

“Yes, I wanted to check in with her, she had some trouble with beetles last time. And I have a lot of oozes I can share with her.”

“Mind if I come along, too?” Mato asked. “I could use the opportunity to stretch my legs.”

“Not at all.” It surprised her that Mato would be interested in visiting, but his company would be welcome – and it might be nice to introduce Naia to another friendly person.

***

“I found it,” Ali said, feeling the thin underwater channel she had squeezed her ooze through open out into the vast underground chamber she had helped Naia escape into.

“Good, but how are we going to get in there? I don’t think a rat could have fit through that gap,” Mato said, looking dubiously at the small bubbling brook that poured out of the cracks in the rock.

“Give me a few minutes, I’ll make a teleportation circle,” Ali said. She carefully inscribed the circle into the damp riverbank, taking care to keep it even and level. “Ok, the circle is here,” she told him. “I’ll go inside and make the destination circle.”

“I can see it now,” Mato said, reminding her that he had advanced his survival instinct and could now sense mana too. “The mana, anyway.”

“Ok, two minutes,” she said, and switched locations with her ooze, dumping herself in a pool of water inside the underground cavern. Ugh. She had forgotten to check – oozes were not much affected by being in or out of water, and so they didn’t register it as a different state. She clambered out of the pool and knelt on the rocky bank to inscribe the other half of her teleportation circle, and as soon as it completed, Mato appeared in the center.

“You look wet,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her, but his gaze quickly left her sorry, bedraggled state and roved around the cavern, alert and curious.

“Don’t ask,” she said, grumpily and removed her mana from both runic circles, causing them to evaporate.

The vast chamber was just as she remembered it – a thundering waterfall into a massive pool of preternaturally clear, glowing water that lit the entire cavern. Twisted through it all, she could see the thick ropy web of Naia’s unique flexible domain mana. But there were no oozes or monsters anywhere she could see.

Where is she? Given the mana, she knew Naia was around somewhere, but it might take them a while to find her.

“Ali? Friend?”

Ali turned at the sound of the small tentative voice, but all she found was a small pool of water and some gravelly scree piled up against the rocky wall.

“Naia? Where are you?”

“Hiding.”

“Why? Oh… This is Mato, he is a friend.” Naia had clearly grown, or at the very least had advanced her mimicry magic, because Ali could not find her no matter how hard she searched. The sound of her voice had given away her position, but all she could see was a pile of rocks.

“Friend? I thought Naia was friend.” The little voice sounded a little petulant now.

“I’m still your friend Naia. Mato is also a friend,” Ali said. Wait… does she even know… “You can have more than one friend.”

“Oh.” One of the rocks near the back of the pile warped, as if suddenly becoming soft, and flowed down the scree toward her, slowly taking on the blue appearance of her normal unconcealed form.

Mimic Slime – Anomalous Ooze – level 49 (Water)

“Naia! You’ve grown,” Ali exclaimed. “You’re level forty-nine already.”

The little blue ooze bobbed up and down happily at the sound of her praise. “Thank you for the gift,” she said, extending a pseudopod forward which slowly began glowing and swelling until she separated from it.

Sparkling Ooze – Ooze – level 40 (Light)

It was the ooze she had sent with Ryn as a gift for Naia. Wait…

“Naia, how is that ooze level forty?” Her own Sparkling Ooze imprint did not go that high. In fact, Ali distinctly remembered the one she sent being level thirty-five.

“I fight, it gets levels,” Naia said, tipping a little sideways as if expressing curiosity.

“Wow, that’s… impressive,” she said. It was more than impressive – if she could level her own minions, she would have had absolutely no trouble with the Corrupted Fire Drake. How can I… I’ll ask her later. “Anyway, this is Mato, he is one of my friends.”

“Hi, Naia,” Mato said.

“Friend?” Naia said, scooting quickly to hide behind Ali.

“If you want, I’d like to be your friend too,” Mato said gently.

“Two friends?” Naia said, sounding rather like a kid who had just been handed another bowl of ice cream. Naia reached out toward Mato tentatively, and he let her touch him, sitting down to be closer to her level. After the two of them got acquainted, Naia plopped down in the middle between the two of them.

“Ali, Naia is stuck.” Her voice turned suddenly forlorn.

“What do you mean stuck, Naia?”

“I can’t go up because the humans will find me, but I can’t go down anymore because there are strong monsters.”

“Maybe we can go look?” Mato said.

Last time Ali hadn’t checked it out personally, but Naia had been trapped by some beetle thing, and she had offered her the sparkling ooze.

“Beetles again?” she asked.

“No, much stronger. Naia killed beetles and hive. Sparkling Ooze is strong. But not strong enough for nasty Mana Eater.”

Mana Eater? Whatever that was, it sounded rather ominous.

“Before we go look, I have something for you. A lot of somethings,” Ali said. She flipped open her Grimoire and began summoning. She created every single slime monster she had recorded that she knew Naia did not already have: Lux Drifters, Toxic Spitters, and Lava Lurkers. If nothing else, it would give Naia some new options for strategy, and more importantly, she knew Naia’s intelligence was directly proportional to the number of Slime or Ooze imprints she knew.

“Careful of that one,” she said as Naia approached the Lava Lurker. “It can burn.”

“I’ll be careful, Ali,” Naia said, summoning a Scalding Slime and using that to consume the lava-affinity ooze. After the Scalding Slime had finished deconstructing the Lava Lurker, Naia extended a pseudopod, which slowly turned orange-red and began emitting heat. It was a remarkable transition as her water-affinity mana warped into lava-affinity and the extrusion grew larger and larger.

Ali had been stumped, studying affinity transformation from Clarence, stymied by the incredible complexity of the nature of mana and the theoretical exposition of her mother’s work, but seeing it in action right before her eyes caused Sage of Learning to spasm and writhe. Ali gasped at the sudden dizzying deluge of connections it created; snippets of understanding that hinted at a far greater whole.

When the protrusion was big enough, Naia simply separated from it, producing a new Lava Lurker of her own. She bobbed up and down excitedly.

“I guess you can’t level up your oozes?” Naia said.

“Yes, I can’t level my minions.” It had only been three new oozes, and already Naia’s speech patterns were dramatically different.

“Would you like a few Sparkling Oozes to update your imprint?”

“That would be great,” Ali said. It’s not just her speech, she realized. Naia was actually making more nuanced and subtle connections. While Naia made her a few oozes to update her imprints, she resummoned her Acolyte and Hellfire Imp to recover her own attribute enhancements with Empowered Summoner.

Naia led them through the remarkably extensive cavern system, heading progressively downward until eventually, Ali saw something in the mana changing. Here Naia’s domain mana was frayed and something else permeated the air. Something that stank of rot and fetid decay.

“What is that?” Ali asked as they rounded the corner into a small chamber. The walls and floor were covered with a gray, slimy substance that seeped bubbles of a black viscous fluid. The stench in the air had gotten so strong that she almost gagged every time she took a breath.

Fungal Creep – Fungus – level 12 (Nature / Death)

“The creep,” Naia answered. “It grows and takes over my caves. And it hurts.”

The nature and death mana emitted from the fungal creep twisted and warped together forming a structure that permeated the cavern, and Naia’s domain mana was being constantly abraded on contact with it. As she watched, a bulge formed in the fungal creep along one of the walls, growing to about the size of her head before it burst, dumping a dozen small crawling shapes on the ground. They quickly scuttled around, climbing walls and rushing around to the edge of the fungal creep.

Creep Spore – Fungus – level 8 (Nature / Death) x12

As the Creep Spores reached the edge of the putrid fungal creep, they exploded with violent pops, spraying disgusting fluid everywhere, and wherever it landed, the fluid flowed, running down walls and across the rocky floor, merging with the fungal creep, expanding its reach.

“That’s nasty,” Mato said, wrinkling his nose. “What is it?”

“This is a dungeon,” Ali said. It was a dungeon unlike anything she had seen so far, but the creep was most certainly emitting a domain, and one strong enough to cause dungeon-rage for Naia and destroy the mana she had laid down. Even without Calen to confirm it, there was no doubt in her mind.

“It’s Creep Spores and Borer Beetles for a while before we get to the Mana Eater,” Naia said.

“Shall we go explore?” Mato asked.

“Yes, just give me a few moments to make some monsters.”

Armored Drake – Dragon – level 68 (Fire) x2
Hellfire Imp – Demon – level 55 (Hellfire)
Abyssal Stalker – Demonic Spider – level 45 (Blood) x2
Warrior – Hobgoblin – level 43-44 x2
Acolyte of Azryet – Kobold – level 21-22 (Holy) x5
Bone Mage – Kobold – level 21 (Bone)
Fire Mage – Kobold – level 36 (Fire)
Archer – Kobold – level 20 x2
Storm Shaman – Goblin – level 19 (Lightning) x2

Your reserved mana has increased by +2387

It was a good thing Ali had unsummoned her forces before she had left, given just how much she was spending to summon this army. She had no idea what they might face in there, so she had brought a little of everything, weighted toward her most effective minions. Her only exception was that she left out all the oozes, certain that Naia could provide better ones. She nodded at the sight of her assembled minions, happy to see her Grimoire had equipped her Acolytes and mages with a few level-appropriate mana potions each.

By the time Ali was ready, Naia had summoned a puddle of oozes which scattered to the ceiling to give room for her ground-bound minions, and they continued. The slimy passage wound back and forth in treacherous switchbacks, growing Creep Spores that charged them with mindless aggression as soon as they were spawned. She quickly learned to spread her minions out, as small as they were the explosion of rot did a lot of area damage.

“Something is coming,” Mato announced, immediately shifting into his Bear Form.

A loud crunching noise filled the tunnel and suddenly, a hole appeared through the fungal creep and a pair of mandibles emerged, belonging to a sleek burgundy beetle almost as large as Ali’s torso, which dropped down into the tunnel with a strut that more than hinted at belligerence.

Borer Beetle – Rock Beetle – level 27 (Earth).

A second beetle followed, and then a third.

Mato roared and charged them, followed quickly by her melee minions, but the beetles were hardly a threat, quickly dispatched by their superior forces.

“The fungal creep ate the beetles I killed,” Naia said. “And now it sends them to attack me.”

“That’s a dungeon for you,” Ali said, following along as Naia continued directing them past forks, branches, and fungal-creep-filled side caves. Mato switched back into his Beastkin form, perhaps to converse more easily.

“There it is,” Naia said, as they entered an unexpectedly large cavern. There were many dark openings high up in the walls and ceiling, indicating passages leading elsewhere into impenetrable gloom, and out there in the center of a creep-covered floor that pulsed slowly as if breathing stood a squat, massive plant. The trunk seemed woody, hardened, gnarled, and twisted, but covered with ethereal glowing blue flowers that seemed to wave in an unseen breeze upon the end of short stalks. Out of the top of the squat trunk rose two fat branches that ended in a giant bud each, covered with wicked-looking thorns and woody ridges. All around the base of the plant, briar-like tendrils twisted and knotted in continuous restless motion.

Mana Eater – Plant Aberration – level 53 (Nature, Death)

“Boss?” Mato growled.

The mana in the room was twisted and drawn tight, coiled up around the plant in a way that was rather familiar to her by now. It was no wonder Naia had been having trouble.

“Almost certainly a boss.” She wasn’t quite sure, but she would guess it was not a raid boss, but still, a dangerous foe for Naia to face by herself.

“It is scary,” Naia said, her membrane shivering.

“What do you know about it?” Mato asked, his eyes never leaving the monster for a moment.

“The flowers eat mana.”

Ok, stay away from the flowers.

“The big things on top bite, the branches can reach the walls, and monsters come in from the top.” Naia continued. “And then it grows bigger, and my slimes die.”

“What do you think, Mato?” Ali asked.

“The big buds on the top have teeth,” he said. “It already knows we’re here; I can sense its hostility.” Mato turned back toward them. “It’s a plant, so we should use fire. Naia, can you make more of those lava oozes?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice holding some traces of hope as she split off several glowing lava oozes that instantly set the fungal creep to blistering and blackening beneath them. The stench of acrid burning fungus followed the thin coiling tendrils of gray-black smoke everywhere.

This is just the edge of the dungeon, Ali thought, studying the Mana Eater. If this was the weakest of the dungeon’s bosses, Naia would be hopelessly outclassed and slowly crushed as it expanded through her space, eventually forcing her to be exposed to the citizens of Volle.

She needs to be much stronger. Or, she needs help. And not just for a single boss fight. Ali considered the problem, turning the options over in her mind. They were unable to continue against the Corrupted Fire Drake, but they were planning on taking out the death-affinity dungeon in the blighted forest next, but perhaps it would be best to switch over to here instead. However, that would delay Lira’s desire to restore her forest.

“Naia, you can’t make boss monsters yet, can you?” she asked.

“What is a boss monster?”

“It’s a monster made more powerful by the mana of the dungeon, with extra skills called domain magic,” Ali said, explaining it for her while gesturing to the twisted aberration before them, but Naia’s response had already answered her question. “Naia, I want to try something, I think it will help you.”

“Ok?”

Gently, Ali reached her hand out and placed it on Naia’s soft membrane, feeling it pulsing and shivering beneath her touch, and she channeled her mana, offering it to the little ooze. It was substantially more difficult this time, making it quite clear to her that she had a limited capacity for tithe enchantments, and she would need to level up or gain a substantial amount of wisdom if she wanted to create another after this, but it finally condensed, and her notification sounded.

You have offered your patronage to Naia.

Naia bobbed and shimmied for a few long moments, obviously reading the notification, and then without question, Ali’s notification sounded again.

Your patronage has been accepted.
Naia added as a Protégé.

Protégé – Naia
Class: Slime Lord
Traits: Water, Ooze, Minion, Domain, Stealth, Illusion, Movement, Perception, Wisdom, Dexterity, Intelligence.
Your experience, mana, and traits will influence the experience gain of your protégé. Experience tithed back to you via the mentorship tithe may influence your own traits and growth.
Enchantment – Tithe

“I’m not sure how much it will help, but hopefully you get a skill advancement that makes you stronger,” Ali explained. She couldn’t stay here in Volle to help Naia all the time, even though she wanted to help her friend. It was difficult to predict what the mentorship enchantment and her mana might do for Naia, but if it unlocked a minion-enhancing skill like Martial Insight or Empowered Summoner, she might stand a better chance when she was alone. Or, she dared to hope, perhaps she could unlock domain enhancement allowing her to turn her oozes into bosses to protect her caves.

“Everyone ready?” Mato asked.

“What should I do?” Naia asked, ripples of anxious energy pulsing chaotically over the surface of her membrane as her color flickered and warped, trying to change to match the rock and creep, almost instinctively.

“The lava and steam oozes come with me,” Mato said. “Put the Sparkling Oozes on the roof and shoot the mean plant from there.”

“Won’t they die?” Naia asked.

“I will heal your slimes,” Ali said. “You find somewhere to hide and watch.” She surveyed her friend’s forces, satisfied that she had chosen well. There were a few Brine Oozes, but most of her slimes were either the Lava Lurkers or Scalding Slimes, with a few Sparkling Oozes for their area damage.

They spent a little while finetuning their positions to ensure that her drakes would not breathe fire on or cleave Mato or the oozes. Then Mato transformed into his Bear Form and charged the plant in the center of the cave, his claws tearing great chunks from the fungal creep as he accelerated. A great roar rocked the cavern followed by an inhuman shriek from the plant as Mato’s claws ripped into the heavy gnarled wood, flinging massive splinters across the cavern as he laid into it like a demented woodcutter.

Instantly, the plant reacted in a frenzy of chaotic whipping branches and coiling bramble vines. High-pitched screeches filled the chamber as the thorny protrusions scraped along his heavy armor and left bloody gashes wherever he was unprotected.

Vivian Ross

“Mister Thriftpenny, please come on in,” Vivian said as the Gnome storekeeper knocked on the open door to her office. As usual, his tailored suit was impeccable, and he had even chosen an eyepatch that matched his pocket square. “What can I do for you? Is there something wrong with your new store space?”

“Good afternoon, Guildmaster,” he said, stepping into the room. His usual poise and elegance were marred by an undercurrent of anxiety. While he kept his hands clasped behind his back, Vivian could see the subtle interplay of his stamina energy as his fingers fidgeted.

Merchant – Gnome – level 30 (Space)

“Congratulations on level thirty,” she offered, hoping to put him at ease.

“Well, that’s the problem,” he said. “My class seems to have broken, and I was hoping for your advice.” It all came out in a sudden rush.

Vivian forcibly suppressed the sudden gut-clenching pang of worry. She took a breath and said, “Why don’t you sit and tell me what happened?” Weldin had turned out to be a fantastic addition to the guild: hard-working, with excellent skills, and very conscientious. He was personally responsible for much of the guild’s burgeoning relationship with the crafters and artisans in Myrin’s Keep, and she was loath to see something so awful happen to him.

It's not the same as yours, she told herself. Classes generally did not break, per se. Not unless there was a major change, like… a natural path tier-up. Or adding an affinity. However, due to traumatic or critical experiences, sometimes classes pivoted in what they offered as new skills and advances, and if the change was too dramatic, the result could be a terrible conflicting mess of inefficient skills, resulting in something that could never be good at any one thing. It has to be something like that…

“I think it’s because I was trapped in that Goblin dungeon,” Weldin said, sighing as he took a seat. “Or maybe because I got this space affinity from Aliandra’s shrine. I just reached level thirty and there are no merchant skills for me to choose. Everything seems related to dungeons.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Vivian asked – and in seconds her mind’s-eye filled with strangely glittering writing.

Spatial Storage
Resistance is increased by +[skill]%
Mana: store or retrieve an item in your own personal spatial dimension. You can store up to [1000 x skill + 20 x intelligence] lbs.
Space, Storage, Intelligence.

Dismantle Monster
You are proficient at evaluating monster parts for crafting or other uses. You are proficient at using daggers, knives, or similar tools for carving up a corpse.
Mana: Carve up a monster, retaining the valuable parts for sale or use.
Space, Knowledge, Dexterity

Dungeon Survival
You are proficient with leather armor.
Mana: Warp space around you, making your body much harder to detect. You gain stealth.
Space, Illusion, Stealth, Intelligence

Wow, that’s unusual.

Weldin simply sat there in morose silence while Vivian carefully studied the offered skills.

Her first impression was one of surprise – these skills were surprisingly strong. But she could see how a merchant would be devastated at not finding anything that would really improve his ability to move merchandise or manage money more efficiently.

“That does seem to be a divergence,” Vivian said carefully.

Weldin nodded sadly. “Even the Spatial Storage skill offers resistance – that’s a combat class attribute, isn’t it?”

“True,” Vivian said, pinching her chin. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed like it wasn’t really a divergence. Perhaps she was just looking at the whole thing from the wrong angle. What if Weldin’s class had never been a pure merchant at all?

“What can I do?” Weldin said in a tone that told her he would be wailing if not for a prodigious feat of emotional suppression.

“Do you know what a Porter is?” Vivian said, finally realizing what it was about Weldin’s skills that had piqued her curiosity.

“A mule?” Weldin asked, his expression twisting into a sour scowl. “The class that gets exploited across the kingdom and forced into dungeons to carry stuff for the adventurers?”

“Yup, that one,” Vivian said. “I think your class might be a Porter, not a Merchant.” It wasn’t like Porter was an official category that would show up in Identify – it was more a hybrid non-combat class suited for the role because of the unique blend of skills it had.

“I don’t want to be a mule. I like my job as the guild store merchant, and I’d like to keep it, thank you very much,” Weldin stated firmly.

“I don’t intend to force you into anything,” Vivian said, keeping her tone calm and relaxed, and sighed with relief inwardly as Weldin’s agitation and stress visibly subsided. “Let me explain the Porter role to you from the perspective of an experienced adventurer, and then you can make whatever decision you want.”

He nodded, clearly deeply unhappy. “Please.”

“It is true that the class – or role, really – has a reputation for being exploited, but the reason is because Porters are so extremely useful. Unfortunately, being non-combat classes, they have very few ways to protect themselves from unscrupulous delve groups. Most prestigious guilds have a Porter, and their identity is typically a closely guarded secret because they are so valuable. They’re vulnerable to kidnapping. The reason for their value is they multiply the effectiveness of a dungeon group by an order of magnitude – and even more so for raid groups.”

“What makes it so valuable?” Weldin asked, intent on her account.

“Look at that Spatial Storage skill, for instance. At gold rank, we give our adventurers a storage ring with 1750 pounds of storage. At level one, your skill would have more than that, and with just a few skill increases, you would easily be able to store the entire contents of your shop. If you just took that skill and went along with the raid group, you would increase the time they could spend in the dungeon by days, or even weeks, because you could bring all the supplies they needed and carry back everything they harvested or killed. The amount of gold they could bring back from a single delve would be an order of magnitude larger, increasing the reward enormously. That’s why most of the top guilds grant a minimum of a full share of the dungeon haul to the Porter, and sometimes even two or three times more than a combat class.”

Weldin’s eyebrow looked like it was going to crawl under the brim of his hat.

“Now take a look at the Dismantle skill. Adventurers kill lots of dungeon monsters – hundreds, sometimes thousands if there’s some kind of swarm, for example. You would be bringing back the bones, hide, scales, teeth, blood, or whatever is valuable from everything they kill. Most adventurer groups leave the bulk of that stuff to be reabsorbed into the dungeon and wasted because they can’t harvest it and don’t have the space to store it all. With the three skills you’ve been offered, you would make a fortune on every single delve.” Successful delve, Vivian amended in her mind – but now was not the time to dredge up old history.

“I have one skill I think I can part with,” Weldin said, deep in thought. “Which two should I take? Storage and Dismantle?”

“I think the Survival one is essential too. Dungeons are dangerous places, and you need to be able to survive. Your group will protect you, but that skill is strong. May I see what else you have already?”

Weldin shared his full skill list, and Vivian carefully studied it, meantime thinking that he did not seem averse to dungeon delving – quite the opposite, in fact.

“Were you thinking of scrapping Accountancy?” she asked.

“No, Evaluate. I have Appraise as a general skill, so I don’t really need Evaluate also.”

“My recommendation would be to drop Accountancy, too; you can hire someone to do that. And you can teach Mieriel to manage your store while you’re out in the dungeons,” Vivian said. Weldin’s about-face on the Porter class seemed heavily influenced by the sheer amount of money he would be making for himself, but it would be an incredible boon to the guild and to the adventurers that he grouped with, too. And Vivian hadn’t been exaggerating the value of a Porter – if anything, she had undersold it. The true value would likely be unbelievable.

“Ok. Done,” Weldin said. “Who should I talk to? And do you have any other suggestions?”

“I would talk with Aiden and Teagan. They are the closest groups to your level. And maybe have a quick chat with Basil – he is a non-combat class who is working with the adventurer groups, so he can give you some personal insight. You can further increase your efficiency by learning a few general skills like gathering – specifically, Skinning and Herb Gathering may be the least useful because of your Dismantle and Basil’s skills, but Mining, Cooking, Disenchanting, and Camping skills might be very useful.”

“Ok,” Weldin said, pulling out a neat stack of paper and an ornate quill pen to take notes.

“There is also a fairly obscure general skill you can learn called Dungeon Harvesting; Ryn can probably help you research more details in the library. It helps you to find edible plants and harvest them – not normally that useful – unless you happen to have a nature-affinity dungeon like Aliandra’s. It might not sound like much, but all the produce grown in a dungeon is mana-infused, and the cooks are going to go crazy for even a single dungeon-grown apple.”

“This is excellent,” he said, nodding. “I remember the frenzy when Aliandra fed the town.” He licked his lips lightly. “Yes, yes, very good.”

“Oh, you’re a space-affinity user. For your level forty unlock, keep an eye out for mass teleport skills, or skills that might develop into that. The most effective Porters can teleport their raid group into dungeons across the continent and sell their wares in any city in the world.”

Weldin’s eye grew wide with surprise and excitement. “What?”

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