Chapter 61. Return to the City. Part Three

What kind of number was that, anyway? Ten billion?

No, no… there were far more zeros than that. Ten trillion?

I learned that my sword was a magical item of the fifth quality rank, but to raise it to the sixth rank would require ten trillion mana.

Was that even possible? Would I ever have such a mana reserve? I found it very hard to believe.

Yes, if my skill "Ascensio" were to reach Rank 5, the cost of improvement would become much lower, considering that 99.99% of the current price was a penalty for attempting to upgrade an item whose rank significantly exceeded the rank of the skill itself.

But even if my skill "Ascensio" reached Rank 5, upgrading my sword would still cost around one billion mana.

Which meant that in the foreseeable future, I couldn’t even hope to improve this sword.

Still… my sword was already very good.

There was no point obsessing over this right now.

Alright, I needed to think about what else I could improve.

After looking around, a crazy idea suddenly came to mind.

I knelt down, pressed both hands against the stone floor of the training room, and tried to activate the skill "Ascensio I."

What if it worked?

I tried again and again, but nothing happened.

No system messages, no notifications—nothing at all.

Well, of course… trying to improve the training room had been doomed to fail from the very beginning.

For a brief moment, it had simply seemed possible.

Essentially, the "Training Room" was a separate skill.

And it already increased its rank as its tasks were completed.

If I had somehow managed to improve it using "Ascensio," that would have been complete madness.

Although… thinking about it now, what benefit would that even bring?

Only now did it occur to me that I had tried to improve the training room without thinking about what that could actually lead to.

I suppose it was for the best that I couldn’t improve the training room.

Even as it was, completing the next task would take, by my estimates, at least more than a year. Most likely—several years.

And if I had somehow been able to improve it…

Then a single task could stretch on for decades. Or even centuries.

So the failure to improve the training room was, strangely enough, good news.

I looked around the training room once more and noticed that one of the corners was filled with junk.

Well… old items I hadn’t used in a long time.

And mushrooms. A lot of mushrooms.

Mushrooms of Origin.

Sherial had said that each of them was worth about two hundred gold coins. Damn. If I sold them, I would become very rich.

Wait.

Mushrooms of Origin were magical items. Edible, yes—but still magical. Which meant that, technically, they were Rank 1 magical items, right?

I walked over, picked up one mushroom, and tried to activate my skill.

Strangely enough… it worked.

No system message appeared, but when I opened my status window, I saw that my mana had decreased by ten thousand. That meant the Mushroom of Origin was now Rank 2.

Checking it was easy.

Before, when it was Rank 1, if I remembered correctly, it granted between one and ten free attribute points at random. I wondered what would happen now.

I simply stuffed the entire mushroom into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Hm.

It actually tasted great.

Strange… why hadn’t I liked eating them before? And why had I stopped consuming them altogether? These were free attribute points.

[Mushroom of Origin (Rank 2) eaten.]

[Gained: +13 Free Attribute Points]

Oh. I gained thirteen free attribute points.

And yes—the system window clearly stated that it was a Rank 2 Mushroom of Origin.

It worked.

If they were Rank 2 now, that meant they should be worth more than two hundred gold, right? Maybe three hundred? Maybe four hundred? If I sold them all…

I took another mushroom, upgraded it, and immediately stuffed it into my mouth. I chewed a few times and swallowed.

And… nothing.

Why was there no system window?

Damn.

I forgot.

A Mushroom of Origin can only be consumed once per day. The effect triggers only once. Eating more than that is simply a waste of resources.

There were a lot of Mushrooms of Origin here. A lot.

I figured that if I upgraded all of them, it should help me raise the skill "Ascensio I" to Rank 2.

And after that, by selling them, I could earn even more money.

The higher the rank of the mushroom, the higher its price.

Which meant I was killing two birds with one stone: leveling the skill and earning gold.

[Status]

[Name: Alisar
Level: 162
Experience: 552,039,896 / 7,600,000,000
Rank: 5

HP: 15,303,110 / 15,303,110
MP: 648,903 / 722,890 (+640,130)
Strength: 507,659
Defense: 505,703
Speed: 516,949
Intelligence: 2,614 (+1,000)
Magic Power: 2,609 (+1,000)
Magic Defense: 3,053 (+62,013)
Free Attribute Points: 0 (+13) (-64,013)

Skills:
Swordsman (Rank 3)
Berserk (Rank 2)
Poison Resistance (Rank 5)
Reinforced Stomach (Rank 2)

Special Skills:
• Training Room (Rank 4)
• Alchemy (Rank 3)
• Ascensio (Rank 1)]

Considering that my mana reserves were still limited, I decided to use all my free attribute points to increase my maximum mana.

And, of course, I invested most of those points into magic defense.

I didn’t want a situation like the one with the dragon—when I couldn’t teleport us into the training room—to ever happen again. Back then, it could have ended in tragedy. The higher my magic defense, the lower the chance of ending up in such a situation again.

I distributed the remaining points among other attributes, but the main investment still went into defense.

Now, once my mana was fully restored, I would be able to upgrade seventy-two Mushrooms of Origin.

And every time my mana fully recovered, I would spend it all on upgrading those mushrooms.

I think this was the best idea I’d had in a long time.

Another six days passed, and we finally reached the road. From that point on, we were traveling along it. Yes, moving forward was much easier here than pushing through the forest.

As we walked along the road, we passed several wagons loaded with goods, and once—even with people.

Some of them cast brief glances at us. At Rem and Sherial—their looks were normal. But when their gaze lingered on me, I felt uncomfortable.

There was something… unpleasant in those looks.

Not pity.

More like mild contempt.

As if they were thinking:

What is this ragged man doing next to girls like that?

By evening, we reached a small village. Only eight or nine houses, standing almost right next to each other. There was one inn and two shops. The inn, by the way, was the only two-story building in the entire village. It seemed this place had been built specifically for travelers on this road.

We headed straight for the inn.

As soon as we opened the door and stepped inside, I heard a woman’s voice:

"Welcome!"

Behind the counter stood a woman in her forties with a friendly smile. She smiled when she saw Rem and Sherial… but when her gaze slid over to me, that smile seemed to freeze for a moment. It didn’t disappear—just became strained. Very slightly.

Yes, it seemed she didn’t like me at all.

Well, who would like a dirty man in torn clothes, clearly not in the best condition, coming to stay at an inn? If I were in her place, I would think such a guest would ruin the bed, dirty the room, and cause nothing but trouble.

Maybe I should just leave Rem and Sherial here and spend the night outside.

Yes, that would be better.

I quietly took a step back, already about to leave.

And suddenly Sherial took my hand, stopping me.

"We need a room with a bath," she said calmly.

I tried to pull my hand free and quietly leave, but she held my palm tightly, not giving me a single chance to slip away.

Of course, I could have used brute force and left—physically, I was far stronger than Sherial, especially considering the difference in our attributes.

But of course, I didn’t do that.

"Yes, we have a room with a bath. One night costs three silver coins," the innkeeper said, trying to smile.

But her acting skills were, to put it mildly, poor—even I could easily tell how fake that smile was.

"Good. Then give us two such rooms," Sherial said calmly.

"Unfortunately, we only have one available room with a bath," the woman replied.

"Then give us that room and one regular room," Sherial said without hesitation.

The room with the bath was given to me. Sherial immediately told me to go, take a bath, and wash properly. I silently nodded and went inside.

The room was decent—fairly spacious. The bed was large. Very large. But of course, I didn’t touch anything. Neither the bed nor the furniture. I didn’t want to dirty anything.

I went straight to the bathroom.

The bathroom was also quite large. There was a huge bathtub. But of course, I didn’t get into it right away.

First, I washed myself thoroughly. There was something like shampoo. It didn’t lather well at all. Or rather—after several tries, it finally started to foam. I washed both my body and my hair with it. But damn… to get it to lather properly, I had to wash my hair about ten times.

Just how dirty had my hair been…

And honestly, my hairstyle was a separate problem altogether. I definitely needed to find a barber later. Cutting my hair with a sword hadn’t been the best idea. Back then, I simply had no choice. And no one had seen me—I was alone. But now… now I clearly needed a proper haircut.

I filled the bathtub with water. Cold water, of course. Maybe there was hot water here, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. The bathroom looked somewhat similar to ones back on Earth, but every pipe only produced cold water. So perhaps there simply was no hot water here.

I filled the tub with cold water and lay down in it.

Finally… that feeling of cleanliness I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. My body felt light, my thoughts calmer.

It was incredibly pleasant.