Cipher looked at his skills, specifically the scaling ones like Aura and Mana Recovery.
As he continued advancing, these skills were going to become obsolete. He needed to find a way to advance them - specifically his Mana Recovery skill. The question was how.
He had asked Selene, and she didn’t have a concrete answer. People just continued leveling up as usual, and the skills advanced themselves. He couldn’t rely on this.
He guessed this mostly worked because the skills were related to classes, so it made sense that a Magic Swordsman would have his Aura upgraded after reaching a certain threshold. But for him, who didn’t have the appropriate class, his skills were less likely to be automatically upgraded unless he knew the exact requirements for the upgrade.
He had asked Ryker for the requirements for C-rank Aura, and Ryker had told him he’d gotten it when all his stats reached 40. Cipher noted that in the back of his mind to try in the future. But what about Mana Recovery? He could ask Elaine when he got out, but would she even know?
He sighed.
There was also another way to upgrade them - waiting for the version you needed to spawn in the shop. The chance of this happening was so impossibly low that it wasn’t even worth considering.
Cipher suddenly paused.
"Wait... the shop?"
His eyes widened. "Yes, the shop. That’s it." How could he have missed it?
He looked at his owned cards: Merge, Soul, and Blank. He was more interested in Merge. If he merged skills, wouldn’t they advance to the next level? He wasn’t completely sure, but it seemed likely. The only problem was finding the duplicate skill to merge as merging other skills might dilute the effects he was looking for if not careful.
Although it was impossible to awaken a skill twice, he had a way. The Fork card.
If he forked a skill, he could make two identical copies and then merge the two copies to make a higher-ranked skill. He grinned widely. He had finally solved this problem.
Since the Merge card he had was being saved for the Heavenly Demon technique, he would buy another one and a Fork card. That was just two hundred points. Two hundred points, and he would get to test if it was possible.
...
A few hours later, the moving group suddenly came to a stop.
"Did they finally get tired of chanting?" Ryker wondered.
"What’s happening?" Cipher asked.
But before Selene could respond, the hero spoke up.
"Everyone, we have arrived at the Demonic Forest. We need to be extremely careful from now on and watch out for traps and ambushes," Zero said, and the group cheered. They then continued marching and chanting.
"Didn’t they say to be extremely careful? Why are they exposing their location with all those cheers?" Ryker asked.
"Don’t mind them," Selene spoke up. "Now that we’ve entered the Demonic Forest, we need to be extremely cautious. From here on out, monsters can spawn freely. Although the hero will take on any high-ranking monsters by himself, it’s best to stay vigilant in case of unexpected events." She looked at the team to make sure they understood, and they nodded.
"Maya, Dante, stay close to Ryker and back him up. Always face monsters as a team," she instructed, and they nodded, moving closer to each other.
"Alright, let’s continue moving. Remember to keep an eye out for monster spawns," she said, and they continued moving with the group.
...
After moving through the Demonic Forest for a while, the hero raised his hand, gesturing for everyone to stop.
Then someone appeared from behind a tree before the group. It was a half-woman, half-arachnid monster.
"Your senses are as sharp as ever, Chosen Hero," she said, her voice dripping with mockery. "But your journey ends here."
She spread her hands wide, and spider webs burst forth, covering the area all around them. The webs wove together rapidly, trapping them inside a massive cocoon.
The hero raised his sword, and it erupted with a bright light that illuminated the dim interior.
"How noble," the arachnid demon sneered. "The great hero, leading all these innocent lambs to slaughter. Tell me, do you feel their faith flowing into you? Does their devotion taste sweet as you grow fat on their worship?"
She circled around the edge of the cocoon, her many legs clicking against the webbing. "You’ve brought them here to die, all so you could increase your own power. What a righteous hero you are."
"So I wasn’t going insane," Cipher thought, looking at the hero’s stats. They had increased quite a bit since they’d begun marching. It seemed the hero was increasing his stats through the chants of the group. No wonder they kept chanting relentlessly, they were fueling his power.
He wondered if it was some sort of faith-related ability. It sounded more like something a god would do. The hero had some divine-related skills - he wondered what god the hero was connected to.
"You speak lies, demon," Zero said, his voice steady and unwavering. "These people came here of their own free will, not as sacrifices, but as witnesses. They march to see the death of their oppressors - the very demons who have tormented them for generations. I will not let a single one of them fall here."
Tch. the demon clicked her tongue. She then smiled, calming herself. "How touching," she hissed. "Let’s see if such pretty words can save them from what comes next."
Suddenly, the walls of the surrounding web cocoon began to bulge and writhe. Hundreds of smaller arachnid monsters burst forth from the webbing and charged toward the group in a screeching wave.
Cipher glanced at the arachnid monster through Appraisal. The monster was strong, but not strong enough when compared to the hero, so he had nothing to worry about. He drew his sword and faced the upcoming arachnid monsters.
"This is the first farming checkpoint, and the lowest level," Selene explained. "The monsters we’ll be facing here will either be F-rank or E-rank." She paused, making sure they were listening.
"After this, we’ll face other checkpoints similar to this one, with the level of monsters increasing. At the moment, the best we can handle is up to checkpoint six, which has tons of C-rank monsters."
"Well, we’ll discuss that later. For now..." She grinned. "Focus on farming exp."
Everyone rushed toward the monsters.