For Sale. Fallen Lady. Never Used.

Sneer.

Faye donned her characteristic eerie smile while dissecting the Fisherman’s corpse into pieces.

“Of course, it’s for material collection.”

“……”

Talking like that with a blood-covered face looked like something out of a horror movie.

The movie title would probably be Psycho Path. No, Psycho Faye? Something like that.

While I was taken aback…

“Hehe~ Hehe~”

Faye continued her collection happily, humming a tune along the way.

After skillfully removing a few scales with her dagger, a uniquely shaped organ, and even the eyeballs, Faye finally stood up from her spot.

The whole process took just a little over a minute.

“My goodness.”

Was I carrying around a looting pet this whole time?

Watching Faye wipe the blood off her face blankly, she shrugged her shoulders as if embarrassed.

“Junior? Why look at me like that?”

“Your collection speed is amazing.”

“Hehe… Even a worthless alchemist can do a few things, and one of them is preparing materials. I used to work at the Monster Exchange before meeting you, Junior!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to make and sell potions? With your skills, Senior Faye, you could easily make intermediate potions.”

“…I didn’t have the money for materials.”

“Ah.”

The Academy provided abundantly for the students’ needs, allowing them to focus on their studies regardless of their family circumstances.

So, occasionally, students like Faye would end up spending all their money and just barely getting by on food.

Anyway, if it would only take about a minute and those materials were helpful for Faye, there was no need to dissuade her.

After all, you never know when something might be needed, so it was always good for crafters to carry a variety of materials.

“What are the Fisherman’s materials used for?”

“Um… If it were a higher-level specimen, obviously, it could be used in various ways, but for a lower-level specimen like this, its uses are quite specific.”

Faye took out the materials she had collected to show me.

“The scales, once processed with chemicals, can be used like metal that conducts mana well, or you could break them into pieces and mix them with explosives to increase their power or grind them into a fine powder for use as a catalyst. The swim bladder and eyes…”

Perhaps because it was a subject she knew well, Faye began to excitedly explain how the Fisherman could be useful.

Under normal circumstances, I would have just listened, but since we were in the middle of dungeon exploration, I decided to cut it short at an appropriate point.

“Please tell me more about it later. For now, let’s head to the next room.”

“Oops… I’ll be quiet now. Whoops…!”

Faye covered her mouth and returned to her spot.

I chuckled at her actions and resumed our dungeon exploration.

As expected, the dungeon exploration went very smoothly.

We just deactivated traps, as I remembered, prepared for battles with monsters, and moved toward the center without getting lost.

Along the way, Carla and Elisha tried on robes, and Iris demonstrated elemental combination magic in front of them for evaluation.

We didn’t give up on gaining practical experience, either.

After several hours of navigating through crossroads and conquering rooms.

We briefly stopped in front of a crossroad leading to the room with the dungeon core.

Carla, who hadn’t seen me stop except during battles, asked with a puzzled look.

“Why are you stopping, Master? Is there a trap in the passage?”

“No. That’s not it. If we go through the far left path here, we’ll quickly reach the core.”

The general condition for clearing a dungeon is usually to destroy the central axis that maintains it.

If the core was within a monster, it was called a boss, and you had to defeat it. If it was within an object, it was called a core, and you had to break it.

It was hard to say which was better since it varied greatly from dungeon to dungeon, but in the case of maze-type dungeons, it was much easier to destroy the core than to defeat a boss.

Dungeons containing a core instead of a formidable boss opponent were surrounded by numerous monsters to protect the core.

It made simply snatching the core quite difficult….

In maze-type dungeons, monsters were either absent near the core or significantly fewer compared to other types of dungeons.

This was due to the space being distorted and formed, causing monsters to scatter.

In the case of this dungeon, the last crossroad splits into five paths, with the other four leading to rooms filled with Fishermen.

However, the correct core room contained not a single monster.

That was why we stopped.

“Now that Senior Faye has had a chance to showcase her skills and collect what she can, we just need to break the core to clear it… Don’t you find it a bit disappointing?”

“Huh? Master, don’t tell me… you’re itching to kill more monsters?!”

“No, do I look like someone obsessed with fighting?”

“Not at all. But you do hate cultists and monsters with a… Hmm. A pathological detest.”

“Well, that’s true… but you’ll understand why I hate them so much once we get to the core room.”

It was quite a horrific scene for those seeing it for the first time.

“Anyway, what I meant to say was that it’s a shame to waste such a perfect real-life practice opportunity.”

Fishermen were like tailor-made teaching materials for my current level.

They were weak individually but not so much in groups. They provide excellent training opportunities unless one uses robe invisibility.

“Training… you’re talking about training, right?”

Carla, with a meaningful smile, subtly moved closer to me.

“Real-life experience is indeed the best training. Especially for a magician like you, Master, who relies more on intuition than theory.”

“Then…”

“However.”

Before I could say anything, Carla emphasized each word with a flick of her index finger.

“Real-life experience is beneficial when you’re familiarizing yourself with tasks you can perform. Master, you’re already making good use of what you have. If anything, maybe you lack in utilizing elemental combinations.”

“Hmm. Even just enhancing power or making spells easier to use would do… but the essence of elemental combination is to create impossible phenomena. With a bit more practice, you could respond to any situation.”

Iris, nodding along, responded to my query.

“What do you mean specifically?”

“Master, throughout this exploration, you’ve mainly used lightning spells. Even your elemental combinations were mixes of wind and electricity or fire and electricity to cover a wide area at once.”

“Right? Spells like Chain Lightning are available in intermediate magic. I used only single-target spells, so I brought the range of fire and wind attributes. You praised that, too.”

“Of course, that was excellent. But isn’t it a bit monotonous? What if one Fisherman saw Master fighting and informed the others? Do you have a plan for when they’re prepared for Master’s magic?”

“Pour more magic power to crush everything, prepared or not?”

“That’s very Lindelheit-like, but since it’s something Master could feasibly do, I won’t comment.”

Iris, momentarily speechless, then shook her head and continued.

“Still, elemental combination was the secret of the Sylvan Mana Tower. If I may add, mixing with water is also an option. Using the unique manipulability of water spells to directly control lightning and weave through enemies.”

“Huh…”

Right. Spells like Waterball could be manipulated in mid-air by skilled magicians.

Applying that to Thunderbolt could maintain its power while devastating enemy lines.

It felt like a lower-tier version of Chain Lightning.

Widening the attack range but requiring only one block, versus a powerful single-target attack bouncing like a three-cushion shot were different strategies.

Regardless of the opponent’s preparations, this would likely be effective.

“Hmm. We’ve drifted off topic, but in any case, such things are usually realized through solitary training and deep reflection. To learn something in real-life situations, you must be pushed to a crisis, wracking your brain to overcome it.”

“I get what you’re trying to say. Without a life-or-death situation, there’s no real-life growth, so you’re saying to grow through training, not actual combat?”

“Exactly. Awakening in a crisis isn’t something that happens easily.”

“Iris has explained it well. That’s what I wanted to say. If Master is seeking real-life practice to handle newly learned spells more skillfully, that’s fine. But if it’s for growth, there are much better ways.”

“Better ways… wait. I think I know what you’re about to say, Carla.”

“Hehe. But I’m going to say it anyway!”

Carla, holding my hands, sparkled her ruby-colored eyes.

“While Miss Faye does her thing, let’s continue our training with resonance, Master!”

“I knew it was about resonance!”

I still don’t quite get that!

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