Hazel’s suspicion turned out correct—the trapdoor tunnel led into the Gray Stone Hollows. A brief survey of the space outside the tunnel showed monsters in the range of three to five, which was slightly stronger than the first section of the dungeon, but more than doable.

She went and carried Mia to safety, setting her down in the tunnel that linked the Rift and the dungeon proper. She was still unconscious. That didn’t seem like it said anything good for her health, since she was pretty sure prolonged unconsciousness indicated high odds for brain trauma, but her mundane medical knowledge probably didn’t matter much in a world with magical healing. Maybe Mia just needed rest. She’d had a health potion, so Hazel hoped that would stave off any critical injuries.

Not knowing when Mia would wake, and not wanting to just sit around—a level-up might provide a solution, the only Hazel could imagine—she set off into the Gray Stone Hollows. Leaving Mia alone concerned her, but the barren tunnel linking the two parts of the dungeon was completely empty, meaning she should be safe. Sitting around and waiting might just result in Mia getting worse, so between the two options, she’d rather be proactive, even if she didn’t like leaving Mia alone—even in an ostensibly safe and empty tunnel.

The health potion Hazel had found in the miniboss loot chest had brought her up to a functional level, though she still felt tired and injured. Maybe she ought to indulge in some rest as well, speaking practically, but she wasn’t in the mood to do so. She set off with scythe in hand, wanting to kill dungeon monsters and work toward a new skill.

Her opponents were tougher, faster, and more dangerous than the ones she’d first cut her teeth on, but Hazel now had a scythe, combat experience, and permanent bonus stats from [Attribute Siphon]. Picking her fights carefully, she was more than capable of taking on the level threes and fours, and while the level fives were trickier, they also didn’t pose too much threat. Hazel was level three herself, but a much stronger one than normal, and growing more powerful with each encounter.

Killing the [Abyssal Melder] had provided a significant chunk of experience, and she approached level four quickly. The green bar indicating her progression ticked up steadily as she cut her way through the easier non-Rift monsters around the exit. She checked on Mia every two or three kills, the succubus’s safety obviously her highest priority.

As she worked, her ‘kill 100 monsters’ quest also approached completion. She hadn’t gotten credit for Mia’s kills in the Crimson Courtyards, but Hazel had been taking out her own stragglers here and there, near the end. Based on the current pace, it seemed Hazel would hit level four before finishing the quest, but the quest wouldn’t be too far behind. An inventory—the reward—didn’t solve any of her current dilemmas, but she would still appreciate having the spacial storage.

With each kill, she activated [Attribute Siphon], and her stats incrementally grew. Her exact gains were impossible to discern, since stats were broken down into grades that seemed to be quite wide—with ‘F’ still not having progressed to ‘F+’ in any stat—but she was fairly certain she could feel the bonuses, even gained in tiny amounts. Each passing kill, she felt a little bit stronger, faster, and more durable.

Though that might also have to do with her increasing skill with her scythe. She was still at best a clumsy amateur with the weapon, but each successive fight meant she could handle it that much better. If monsters got close enough, the weapon became more difficult to use, but even smacking monsters around with the shaft rather than the blade was still better than using a rock.

She was undecided if she wanted to keep the weapon for the long term. So far, she liked it, and admittedly, a scythe-wielding slime was just somewhat amusing to her. She probably shouldn’t pick her weapon based on what was ‘amusing’, but for now, she didn’t have a choice, and so would put the decision off for later.

As in the first section of the dungeon, [Motion Usurpation] saw little use. She activated it against most enemies, just to see if they had a movement skill, but they rarely did. The low-level insectoid monsters had simple ability-kits, mostly relying on their mundane biology, not skills.

Eventually, her hard work yielded the expected result.

With her goal accomplished, Hazel headed straight for the Rift entrance. She checked on Mia before settling down next to the girl. Maybe it was hopeful thinking, but her breathing seemed steadier than before. She was recovering, if slowly. It might not have been necessary to leave her at all—but Hazel had wanted to work toward her level up just in case.

Sitting down and leaning her back against rough stone, with Mia to her right, Hazel opened up her level four skill workshop.

Of the four choices, ‘Utility’ or ‘Defense’ were the clear options for a healing skill. She figured ‘Utility’ was the more likely, though it would have been nice to have Mia confirm.

Dismay washed over her. She’d been hoping for some kind of healing word right off the bat. Of course, given only three options for the ability, receiving exactly what she’d hoped for had been at best a tiny likelihood. She hadn’t seen a heal modifier in any of her skill workshops.

Should she keep trying for it? Of the choices available, what was the most likely to provide what she needed? Possibly aura, in the sense of an AoE passive regeneration effect. Consume also seemed like a good contender, though she didn’t think it would provide a heal to someone else, but rather, if anything, a personal heal. Still, maybe if she got a personal heal, then she could pivot it to a targeted one? She still had another round of modifiers after this one. Or, possibly she did. Having only done this twice, she had no idea if two rounds were guaranteed. Maybe she’d only get one, or three or four. Maybe the workshop would change in a completely different way. The skill was too untested to know how it worked with confidence.

Regardless, she considered her choices, then settled on ‘Consume’. It seemed her best chance of a healing-type spell.

Hazel had mixed feelings on the ability. It was certainly not a heal she could use on her teammate. That said, the skill seemed interesting. Doubled potion effects? That meant mana potions would be twice as effective, which would help with her ongoing mana problem. The bonuses to every other type of potion would also be amazing—especially more unique potions. She was curious how the skill would interact with utility based effects.

But was it what she needed? She saw the potential for the skill to be incredible, but she already had outstanding skills, and the ability to edit them into even greater ones.

What would each of the modifiers do? She could only make guesses. Storage might make the ability store potion effects to be used later. Extend might improve duration instead of efficacy.

Recuperate held most of her interest. It was a word clearly associated with healing. She wasn’t sure what exact shape it would take, but of her choices, it was the only one that could possibly help Mia.

Plus, it also seemed like the best. Doubled potion effects was a great skill, but it affected all potions. By specializing into recuperate, maybe it would, say, triple the efficacy of recovery type potions—which might be Hazel’s most needed potion type. She didn’t know what kinds of potions existed out there, but in her current state, health, stamina, and mana potions being greatly improved would be a great pick up.

Regardless, her ultimate motivation came down to Mia. The succubus had nearly gotten herself killed helping Hazel survive the mini boss, and so Hazel felt obligated to do whatever she could to get a healing skill.

So, ‘Recuperate’ it was.

Hazel stared at the skill, defeated. Not because it seemed bad, but because that had been her last chance to get something that could help Mia, and it had failed. She glanced at the pink-haired girl, who, still pale and filthy from their fight, breathed in steady up and down motions—but who still hadn’t woken. She’d been out for an hour or more now, and Hazel doubted that could be good for her.

But she could hardly change the result of the skill, and had given it her best shot.

Was it good, at least? She considered it, pushing away her disappointment.

Consume matter to recover. It seemed like a great fix to her mana problem—in any other situation she would have been ecstatic to receive it. There were probably limitations to just how much she could use the skill, in the same way that potions had limits, but at a minimum, it meant she had an avenue to mana regeneration that most people didn’t—so hopefully that resource would become less of a limitation.

It seemed like a racial skill. Slimes were known for absorbing matter and breaking it down in their gelatin-like body, so she suspected [All-Consuming] had spawned from that.

Hazel didn’t have all too much that she could consume. She had a collection of monster cores and essence coins which she’d been storing inside her arms, her gooey body acting as a temporary inventory. The skill said that she could consume any matter, so likely even loose rocks and debris, but it scaled with the ‘strength’ of what she consumed.

So, like, dungeon loot? If she absorbed a piece of armor gained from a loot chest, then she assumed she’d recover a good chunk of her health and mana. But that obviously wasn’t an option for her; the armor she did have she was keeping equipped, and she had no intention to eat her scythe, either.

The essence coins and monster cores, then.

She pulled out a bronze essence coin, a simple, round piece of metal with a geometric symbol—a collection of sharp, organized lines that meant nothing to her—etched onto it. She considered the coin for a second, then decided it would make a good first experiment. She had plenty of them.

Her mana sat at around the one-half point, coming up on her next [Skill Edit] opportunity, which took a little more than two-thirds of her total mana from what she’d seen. Last night’s sleep had recovered it from being nearly empty, and so had the passive hours spent in the Rift—though less so.

She focused her newest skill on the bronze essence coin in her hand, willing it to break down. With her palm facing up, and the coin sitting atop it, she watched as the metal started to fizzle, the gooey substance of her hand turning suddenly acidic. The coin dissolved, melting into a bronze puddle, before joining her hand and disappearing.

She checked her resources. Her mana had gone up, though only a sliver—about one percent, small enough she thought she might have imagined it. Her health had gone up too, and for that matter, she felt slightly energized after consuming the coin. Her stamina had been restored, though only just enough to be barely noticeable.

She ate another coin, then a third, then starting consuming them in clumps of five. After eating thirty of the coins, her mana had gone up considerably, and her health as well. She felt much better—more even than when she’d taken the health potion.

Had she received another broken ability? It wasn’t like bronze essence coins were hard to find; almost every monster dropped between one to five. What were the limits to the ability? Could she do this indefinitely, so long as she had coins, or some other essence, to consume? Maybe it got weaker as she leveled, and was only strong early?

She pulled out another stack of five coins to continue working toward getting her mana topped off. Her next plan to help Mia was to earn enough mana for [Skill Edit], then to morph one of her abilities in a way to heal her. Though exactly how she would manage that eluded her right now; she’d have to think about it.

Just before she started her next snack, though, something interrupted her.

“Ugh,” Mia groaned. “I’ve got such a killer headache. Where are we?”