“Nothing. And the answer to your question is yes,” Celia said with a sigh.
“Great, I’ll count on you when it is time then,” Leo said happily.
“No problem. If there is nothing else I’ll be going. I have a boar to cook,” Celia said.
“Wait, I was wondering if you found anything useful in Blake’s ring,” Leo asked as he remembered the ring Celia picked up last night.
“Yes, there was a lot of good stuff inside. You can see if anything inside interests you,” she said as she took off the silver ring on her finger and gave it to Leo.
‘So, this is the famous storage ring,’ he thought as he curiously looked at the famous storage tool in the middle of his paw.
“How do you use this thing?” he asked as he looked at Celia.
“Try to put some of your mana inside the ring, once you have done that, you will feel a connection with the ring. You can use that connection to view the content of the ring and to retrieve or put anything inside,” she explained.
“Alright,” Leo said and immediately followed Celia’s instructions. As soon as his mana entered the ring he could feel a connection with it inside his consciousness. Everything was as Celia said. However, the system reacted just as he was about to access the content of the ring.
[Ding… A storage space has been detected. Do you wish to establish a connection with it?] the cold system’s voice announced.
‘The system is surely handy,’ he thought and directly chose yes. Immediately after he made that choice, a new tab popped in front of him. This tab was exactly like his system storage one, divided into many little boxes.
However, unlike his empty storage space, those boxes contained a lot of things. Starting with daily necessities like water, coins, and spare clothes. There were also the gears and weapons they looted from the adventurers.
He also found all kinds of potions, and books, materials like beast’s parts, and plenty of beast cores. Most of the cores were of rank D, but there were also some rank C cores. Six to be exact and three of them were from the beasts he killed yesterday.
‘With this, I won’t need to worry about the cores anymore and I can fully focus on the remaining tasks,’ he thought happily. Even though he knew this part was going to be the easiest, he was still relieved that he was able to deal with it so soon.
‘All that is left is this bunch of gems,’ he mumbled as he looked toward the last things that attracted him. It was a bunch of gems scattered through many boxes. Some of those gems exuded a feeling similar to mana while others seemed to contain elemental energy and gave a feeling similar to water.
Excited, he immediately went on to appraise them.
[Mana crystal: (Low-grade)
A crystallized form of mana. Upon use, you can recover 1000 MP. Long time use can help permanently increase the mana pool. You’ll gain 5MP for every ten mana crystals used.]
[Water gem: (Low-grade)
A gem that absorbed a large amount of water elemental particles. Can be used to increase mastery over the water element, create weapons and gears with the water attribute.]
‘So, this is a water gem uh,’ Leo muttered as he took out a bluish gem and carefully observed it.
Meanwhile, Celia, who noticed that Leo had taken something out, thought he finally found something he needed. However, before she could say anything, she saw him put the gem back inside the ring with a disappointed expression. Curious, she asked, “are you not interested in that water gem?”
“No, I am looking for a wind gem, not a water gem. Did you have any?” Leo asked as he fiddled with the ring.
“Unfortunately, no. Though we will surely find some in the human city,” Celia said.
“Yeah, but that could get quite troublesome,” Leo said with a frown. He had naturally thought of that option after finding the water gem. However, he was a beast and none of his allies was human, so it would be difficult to get inside the city.
He could try sneaking into the city, but he was sure it wouldn't be easy. The security in town was bound to be high after the beast tide they just dealt with. Also, even if he managed to sneak in, he had no idea where to look and he couldn’t be sure he would be able to find what he wanted before someone found him.
‘Well, I can try to ask Leila to help me, but she is showing no sign of waking up,’ Leo muttered with a sigh, ‘forget it, if I can’t find another solution by the time I am done with all the other conditions, I can go through with this plan. Right now, this isn’t the most pressing matter.’
“Hum, excuse me but maybe I can help with this,” Sheila said.
“Oh, how can you help me?” Leo asked, his eyes filled with expectations as he looked at Sheila.
“Yes, I think my mother should have some elemental gems. I just don’t know if she had a wind one,” Sheila said. She was somehow reserved as she wasn’t sure if her mother had what Leo was looking for.
“Oh, that’s already good, we can ask her when we go to see her. And don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if she didn’t have any. I am already glad that you try to help,” Leo said.
“Alright.” Sheila nodded.
“Here, take this,” Leo said as he put the cores he collected in the ring and handed it to Celia.
“You can keep it if you want,” Celia said, not immediately taking the ring.
“No, it would be too troublesome.” Leo shook his head as he threw the ring toward Celia.
“If you say so,” Celia said as she caught the ring and put it on. “I’ll be going on then, I am starving,” she said and walked toward her house.
“I will return to my training too,” Sheila said as she picked her spear and after walking to an isolated space vigorously resumed her training.
“Well, look like I am alone once again,” Leo said after the two girls left him.
Finally, alone, he opened the system inventory and clicked on the skill upgrade card.
[Skill upgrade card:
Upon use, you can immediately make any rank D skills of your choice reach the next tier.]
‘First I should start with upgrading the appraisal skill,’ he muttered, sure that it was the best way to use the upgrade card. He already had enough offensive and defensive skills, and with his evolution, he was only to get more.
Meanwhile, appraisal was his only information gathering skill and it wasn’t really useful right now. At his current level, what he could learn through it was too limited and didn’t give him any concrete advantages over his adversaries. He hoped that by upgrading it he would obtain a more useful skill that would allow him to get a better understanding of his opponents.
[Do you wish to use the skill upgrade card? Yes/No]
Without hesitation, he pressed yes and chose appraisal as the skill to be upgraded. Once he confirmed his choice, the skill upgrade dissolved into specks of light that floated toward him and entered his body.
After all the specks of light entered his body, the system once again opened.
[The skill Appraisal has been successfully upgraded. You receive the skill Insight.]
[Insight: Lv1/10
You are able to gain a better insight into the abilities of your target. Only work on a target of rank B or less.]
‘Well, look like I would need to test this to see if I made the best choice,’ Leo muttered as the description of the skill didn’t give him an understanding of its capabilities. Though, he wasn’t afraid as he was never disappointed by the system.
‘This is good, I can use this opportunity to check how the dungeon thing works and test the power of insight,’ he muttered as he took the dungeon crystal out. As he touched the round ruby, Leo couldn’t help but look forward to the adventure to come.
‘Time to go dungeon diving,’ he smiled as he activated the dungeon crystal. As soon as the crystal was activated, it emitted a bright light and the next instant Leo vanished from the settlement and entered his first dungeon.
[Welcome to Slosh’s lair.]
Thank you for the chapter.