Chapter 116: Back To The Heroes?

POV Eliza

I left Master Freyna's office and was greeted nervously by Tamina. She seemed to be worried.

"How was it, Eliza? Did you get into trouble?" <Tamina>

"No, not really. I'm still alive, as you can see. But now I'm tired and would like to lie down." <Eliza>

"I understand that. Master Freyna can be very scary." <Tamina>

“Who's scary here?” <Freyna>

Master Freyna followed me out of her office and looked at Tamina. She was startled and quickly disappeared in the direction of her room.

“That girl, nothing but fluff in her head.” <Freyna>

"Please don't be angry with her, Master Freyna. She has shown good progress in pursuing my middleman. She just needs a lot more practice. It would help if she could learn to conceal her presence." <Eliza>

"That will be difficult. There's a spell for it in dark magic, but there's also a skill for it. Unfortunately, I've never learned the spell and I don't know anyone who knows it. So advancing in the skill will have to suffice." <Freyna>

"Do you still need me? Otherwise, I would like to rest. Have a nice evening, Master Freyna." <Eliza>

Master Freyna just shook her head. So I went to sleep. Surprisingly, no one else showed up today. That gave me enough time to think of answers to Taminas questions, which would come tomorrow.

Over the next few days, I received intensive training under Master Freyna. I only needed practice with some of the skills so that I could use them safely after upgrading to advanced. Darkness and Shadow Magic took a lot longer. But after a week I had managed it. I had increased both magic forms to tier 10 with EXP and with Master Freyna's help, I upgraded both to advanced and gained practice. I had also learned some very useful spells, especially in Shadow Magic. One spell allowed me to hide in the shadows and thus conceal my presence as well as my form. After the upgrade, I got a spell to keep me mobile after hiding. This meant I could hide in the shadows of others and run along with them unnoticed. It was even possible to use some skills while doing so. Very practical. Unfortunately, casting spells in the shadows was still too difficult for me.

But there was another skill that was even more interesting and useful than magic: Appraisal. Master Freyna had the skill on expert, so she was able to teach me. She was surprisingly generous with passing it on. Apparently she learned how to use Appraisal properly from the old priest. So she obviously assumed that I had also learned Appraisal from my priest. I had left her in error. Better than admitting that my skill came from the title Hero. As soon as I had plenty of time, I should practise with it. On advanced you could use Appraisal not only on people, but also on your own skills. I was excited to see what new things I could learn.

Then came the day I had to leave again. I said goodbye to Tamina, who didn't want to let me go and started to cry. After a sharp rebuke from Master Freyna, she withdrew and let me go. So I left the city in the morning in my disguise as Stevt and traveled south to Tyros. Unfortunately, all my female characters were unsuitable for the plan I had devised. Only the man remained. Unpleasant, but I would get used to it. Hopefully.

I arrived in Tyros after three days. Fortunately, I had already registered with the adventurers' guild in Lightburgh, so I had no trouble getting into the city. Out of sheer habit and because I liked it there, I stayed in the Red Deer again.

I then wandered through the city and soaked up the atmosphere. I immediately realized that I was relaxing. This was where I belonged. I felt at home here.

Then my eyes fell on a notice. Apparently, the heroes were once again looking for capable people who could help them in the long-term fight against the demons. The basic requirement was to have certain skills and don't worked as a mercenary. The candidates were always supposed to arrive at the best hotel on every Sunday and introduce themselves directly to the heroes.

I still had a few days until then. Being close to the heroes definitely had its advantages, so I should give it another try. I had already thought about whether I should try to draw attention to myself with first-class performances in the guild so that the heroes would approach me of their own accord. But to do that, I had to rise in rank quickly, which was best done by hunting monsters. But there were a few problems with this. To rank up to C, I needed C-rank quests. These were only available in Tyros in exceptional cases. Monsters were only available within the dungeons. That's why I had no opportunity to put this plan into action. Rank C wouldn't be nearly enough to attract sufficient attention.

So the notice board after all. Unfortunately, there was an even greater risk that someone would recognize my current face. So maybe it wasn't a good idea to use Stevt's identity. The changes to the body that I was able to make so far were about 10% deviations from the original. With the rank expert, my possibilities would certainly increase, but it was still unclear whether I was even capable of doing this in my current form. After all, when I chose from Luna at the time, I had focused on regeneration.

To proof, if expert rank of self transformation was possible for me, I needed a stele of floor 25. But to get to floor 25, I still had to defeat a lot of monsters. That automatically gave me additional EXP, which were always welcomed. My first goal was the fourth boss so that I could get to floor 21.

So I went into the dungeon on floor 11 with plenty of supplies. I was completely overpowered at my current level, so I stormed through the first floors as quickly as I could. To do this, I transformed back into my normal form as a dark elf. Unfortunately, my nature as a battle junkie quickly took over. So I had to defeat all the monsters I encountered. As always, I bypassed other adventurers. I started to fight at night and only rested when I got tired. I quickly lost track of time in the dungeon, as it was always daytime.

I fought my way through all the monsters in the way that earned me the nickname devil with the sharp fangs last time. My new spell Shadowbind helps me enormously. It bound opponents with their own shadow, hindering their movements. I fought as far as my stamina would take me, took a short break and fought on. I left most of the monster parts behind again, as I couldn't carry them all anyway. But now that I was in Master Freyna's debt, I couldn't leave the money lying around. I got most of the money from the magic cores. I collected them from the wolves onwards. I left the rest lying around.

I largely ignored the treants again. With their thick bark, they were still a difficult opponent for me and held me up for too long. I only had to face them during the boss fights. Annoying creatures.

Even the boss on floor 20 was surprisingly easy to defeat despite his minions. I had become strong, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself. But the rewards were very decent. In addition to the gold, there was a lot in the chest that could be easily turned into money. I also packed everything up as I wanted to leave the dungeon afterwards to go back to Tyros. I improved my sleep resistance at the stele. I now had about 8500/10000 EXP in the skill and was about to level up. Since I was here once and didn't know which other skill I should increase, I decided to upgrade without further ado. I was curious to see how this would affect my need for sleep.

I left the dungeon in the disguise of Stevt. In Tyros, I went to the guild as Eliza. Sana looked at me skeptically, I didn't know why.

“Hello Sana.” <Eliza>

"Eliza, you're in town, aren't you? I haven't seen you for a while."<Sana>

"I'm only here recently. I need money for a certain purpose, so I went hunting in the dungeon. Here's my loot." <Eliza>

"What have you got? Magic cores? Are these from the wolves on floor 17? And are these from the orcs on floor 18? How did you defeat so many of them? And where are the teeth and the furs?" <Sana>

"I defeated some of them myself. I'm strong enough for that. The other wolves and orcs were lying around on the floor. Apparently someone was there before and since he leaves the monsters lying around, I grabbed the magic cores. The furs are too heavy for me, but don't be surprised if someone arrives soon with a whole collection of furs. I made a test visit to floor 19 and there were lots of dead monsters lying around there too." <Eliza>

"That also explains why I got so many wolf pelts from floor 17 yesterday. The devil must have been there first. I'd love to know who it is." <Sana>

"I'm lucky the devil exists. Thanks to him, I can get money easily. See you later, Sana." <Eliza>

I left the guild, turning into Stevt unseen on the way, and went to sleep in the Red Deer. The last few intense days, in which I only slept when I had no more Stamina, had increased my Sleep Resistance. Nevertheless, I was now exhausted. I clearly noticed that I was suffering deductions to my stats in a form other than my true one. The longer I lived in this form, the lower the deductions became. However, this meant that as a Stevt I still had the greatest possible restrictions. My stamina was correspondingly low as a result. Time to sleep.