Chapter 402 - Mana Reinforcement

To prevent the worst-case scenario, Ryan decided to lay some traps around the place that he selected as his base. He wasn't that close to the first camp he was going to attack, but he was close to seeing the main route they used to head straight toward the northern part of the country.

Oddly enough, Ryan had selected the peak of a mountain for that job. Even though he didn't expect that, he also found another route on the other side of the mountain that was used by the Genbu species.

"Such dumb monsters… so close to each other, and yet they don't feel each other's presence or notice their movements," Ryan sighed. "I need to learn from this and focus on leveling up Radar and Awareness. In any case, can you feel the location of the dungeons, Femradiel?"

"Yes, they are located respectively in the cardinal points around Tokyo," Femradiel replied. "Byakko in the North, Genbu in the West, Seiryu in the East, and Suzaku in the South."

Ryan nodded after hearing that; it makes sense that the bosses organized their species using those directions as well. While it made sense, Ryan felt that something was off… but he couldn't pinpoint what that was.

Regardless, Ryan began the massacre. Whenever a boss entered his range, he attacked. However, not like usual. Ryan used his ballista in an unusual way. After charging it with Power Shot, he controlled the projectile with Force. He made it fly in a curve that made the projectile as if it had come from the West, the direction where the Genbu species could be found.

Still, even a charged attack from the ballista didn't finish off the monster. Still, Ryan completed the task by firing another massive steel needle.

"Next time, I should activate Deadly Aim," Ryan said. "I guess I also need to find a way to charge Power Shot faster. It is a pain and not very efficient to charge for five minutes every time I have to kill those behemoth-like creatures."

Ryan also needed to find a way to charge his projectiles with mana. He recalled that Mana Transfusion could do that. Still, for some reason, whenever he tried to charge an attack with it, he failed.

"You shouldn't force your mana inside it," Femradiel said. "Your stamina doesn't do that when you use Power Shot. You envelop the projectiles with them."

While Femradiel helped quite a bit, it took a while for Ryan to successfully cover a bolt with mana. It hadn't been as easy as learning Power Shot. However, he learned that doing that, in a sense, was much better than just using Power Shot. The mana reinforced the bolts, increasing their durability, piercing power, and speed.

Congratulations! You learned the skill Mana Reinforcement.

Effect: At the cost of your mana, you can increase your physical abilities or the properties of any object. It increases your strength, endurance, and speed by five points per level.

Cost: 30 mana per second.

You obtained 01 status point.

Ryan nodded in satisfaction, but the skill was at such low-level that it would take a while for it to become useful. Ryan probably could forcefully increase the effects of the skill by using more mana, but even so…

"Femradiel… you said you can use mana and coins to level up your skills, right?" Ryan asked. "Can you use coins to level up my skills?"

"I don't know…" Femradiel said. "I have some reserves of mana to do that. Why not use that method?"

"That method won't increase the mana that you will obtain in the long run, so that will be counterproductive for you," Ryan said. "Anyway, try to level Mana Reinforcement by using some coins."

In the end, Femradiel could use coins to make Ryan's skills level up, but she had to take over his body for a while. However, by doing so, she also had access to Ryan's coins as well. The only problem was the cost to level up the skills. It cost one thousand coins at level one at level two, two thousand coins, and at level three, four thousand coins, and so on…

"I guess it isn't that efficient," Ryan said. "Well, no matter. I need to save some time here."

Congratulations! The skill Mana Reinforcement has leveled up.

…

…

You obtained nine status points.

Since it was a buff, Ryan could keep the skill active, and it would level up by itself. So, Ryan could make it level up a few times every single day… as long as he uses some mana potions. In any case, by using Power Shot, Mana Reinforcement, and Deadly Aim, Ryan managed to kill the monsters at a pretty decent pace without revealing his position, but there was still a problem: the corpses stayed visible for quite a while. Sometimes the silver tigers found black tortoises in the direction Ryan made them think the attacks came from, but sometimes they didn't.

"I already knew that something like that might happen, so there is no reason to worry too much about it," Ryan shrugged.

In the end, Ryan had to struggle not to kill any black tortoise. If he had done that, both monsters would confirm that there was a third party nearby, and the plan to make them go at each other would crumble apart. Still, despite his caution, the silver tigers noticed that something was off and eventually stopped going North to check things. Now they only guarded the region around their camp, and that makes a lot more difficult for Ryan. Despite that, Ryan caught himself smiling in front of that new problem.

"You are really weird," Femradiel said.

"I guess so," Ryan shrugged. "In any case, this is a good thing. I wouldn't become stronger mentally and physically if the monsters don't adapt to my actions. With these kinds of problems, I can force myself to become stronger and to come up with better plans to fight the hordes of monsters. Eventually, all this power and knowledge will make me reach my ultimate goal."