Chapter Twelve

"Here."

I handed Welf a book and he carefully took it from my hands, as if it was made from glass, and slowly opened it...

"It's empty..."

I snickered and took out one of my throwing knives, offering it to him.

"It needs a drop of your blood on the cover."

Letting out an understanding "ooh" he grabbed the knife from my hands and cut his finger. Holding out the wounded digit, he let the blood drip to the hardcover of the book.

Symbols glowed blue, covering the entire hardcover and eliminating the workshop in a soft hue.

The glow died down and I grabbed the dagger from Welf's hand as he opened the book, seeing the instructions on how to create the runes and how to etch them permanently into materials.

Sure, the book took a day and a half to make, and a few hours to add all the needed runes but it worked, and that's all that matters.

I watched as he flipped a few pages, his eyes glued to the paper like a child who just found an interesting story to listen to.

I smirked as he frowned, raised his eyebrows, tilted his head and put the book down, flipped to the first page, and looked around for a second before he headed to the door.

"Where are you going?"

He didn't even turn back as he answered.

"I need paper and ink, I gotta practice!"

I snorted and reached out as he passed me, grabbing the collar of his shirt.

"Nope, those are not made by ink, dude, you need to use your mana to etch them into the material."

He looked over at me with a deadpan.

"What is mana?"

I sighed, what the hell do you mean, what in mana?

"Mind, the same thing people use to power spells, that's internal Mana, I'm going to teach you hot to control it to etch runes, and how to make the said runes suck up mana from the outside to power themselves passively."

He blinked, then frowned, before nodding as if all that made sense. I had a feeling he just accepted whatever I told him at this point.

"But first, we need to get your magic up..."

I smiled.

"Guess who is going to be casting Will-o-Wisp against hellhounds?"

He paled, and I watched as his shoulders slumped in defeat. Oh, this was going to be fun!

___

"Will-O-Whisp!"

I watched absently as the fireball that was being created in the mouth of a hellhound combusted, killing it in an instant.

"And that's number Forty-seven..."

Welf sighed, taking a sip of the Mind potion in his hand.

"I know I promised that I wouldn't... but you slave driver..."

I chuckled, bending down and picking up the hide of the Lingerfang I punched to death, along with its magic stone.

"Aw, someone's salty."

He threw the empty mind potion container at me and I grabbed it mid-air, chuckling.

"I'm out of mind potions..."

Welf sighed a sigh of disappointment or relief, it was hard to tell.

"Want to head back for the day? We have been here for about six hours, should be about evening now."

I looked around, confirming that there were no more monsters around, and nodded. No monsters around, so it was okay to relax for a few minutes before the dungeon decided to spawn more just to spite us.

I walked up to my companion, tapping him on the shoulder with the back of my hand.

"Come on, let's celebrate your level up."

Welf turned around to fall in step next to me, however he kept giving me a weird look.

"Did you... Grow taller?"

I snorted in response. I was indeed growing taller, thanks to distributing my mana throughout my body to modify my body structure slightly.

We made our way out of the dungeon, which took an hour and a half after we reached the top floors. After exchanging the magic stones at the guild, we made our way to the same bar where the goddess that gave me the lunch box worked...

I still had to return that box.

___

""Cheers!""

Two bugs full of ale collided and I brought down mine, tilting my head back and drinking most of its contents. Ah, this was the good shit.

Nobody can mess up ale.

Welf put down his cup on the counter and sighed a sigh of contentment.

"That hits the spot..."

I chuckled, grabbing a fork and grabbing a bit of pasta, tasting it. It was good, not gonna lie.

"Man, I haven't had an outing like this since forever. Say, you are from outside of Orario, right? Got any interesting stories to tell?"

I hummed for a moment, before shrugging.

"Are you sure you want to hear me and my friends tripping over ourselves trying to fight surface monsters, though?"

He grinned and nudged me.

"Come on, it can't be that embarrassing, can it?"

I smirked back at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, there was this one time when me and two of my friends were trying to fight a group of goblins..."

He leaned forward, his grin widening and I sighed.

"I tripped and accidentally stabbed the swordsman in the ass while he was decapitating a goblin..."

He snorted and threw his head back in a laugh. I chuckled, remembering that time was embarrassing, but it was fun, the early days are always fun to look back on. At the time, we had no skills and no experience.

I actually gained a skill called backstab from that...

Good times...

"I blame the rock."

Welf laughed harder.