Might as Well

When the rain began to fall, Sam was worried that the noxious poison would, with the aid of gravity, break through his clean aura. And it did so around the edges, where the cleaning power was the weakest. However, he instantly created an umbrella made from air, causing the caustic liquid to drip down around them.

His own form was also covered by shadows infused with illusions, creating a final barrier between him, his armor, and the world. The rest of the team was also utilizing different types of skills to protect their armor and weapons from degradation if the poison would penetrate through the multiple layers of defense.

The air around Dan was sizzling while the ground under his steps froze the moment his boots touched down. Clarissa was enveloped by some kind of specialized healing aura that prevented contaminations. Isabella only had some kind of magical barrier fueled by some artifact, but Sam suspected that it cost more than his apartment. And Katie…

Well, their berserker was covered in black flames that seemed to be sucking in light while seemingly being alive. Occasionally, a tongue of flame would reach out, lap up some poison from the ground or from the falling rain, and let out a contented sigh.

As always, it was creepy as fuck.

And whatever got through Katie’s magical protection was instantly healed by Clarissa’s expert skills.

Slowly and surely, they navigated through the pockmarked road, dealing with the incoming poison elementals, dodging or erasing the vomit-like attacks.

They also didn’t let the rain pool around them. As soon as one sufficiently large puddle of caustic poison gathered to start to birth a poison elemental, Dan snapped off a super-heated lance of plasma flash boiling it into noxious steam.

Which was immediately erased by Sam or Clarissa with the aid of Clean spells.

Other people were constantly panicking and being surprised, while Sam and his team simply bulldozed their way through every monster and obstacle with superior skills and can-do attitude.

And a buttload of firepower…

So much firepower that the last mid-level boss didn’t even have time to fire their main attack at them before it was simultaneously vaporized, frozen, hacked to pieces, and cleaned out of existence.

“Do you think that maybe it’s a little unfair?” Dan asked as they were sitting under a pile of debris resulting from whatever created the craters and formed into a perfect temporary shelter and rest stop from the rain.

Sam shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like the other guilds don’t research the fractures…”

“Well, yes… but if they see what we can do with our skills, or how easily we solved the whole equipment destroying rain?”

“Just don’t let them see it!” injected Isabella, who was sitting with her back to the stone and sharpening one of her swords.

“Plus, we worked really hard to develop our skills. Well, most of us…” Clarissa added while all eyes fell on Sam.

He just gave them an awkward smile and scratched the back of his neck.

“It just makes sense you know…”

“Suuure…”

They reached the final boss without any issue. The elements didn’t prove any problem and their armor, thanks to the copious amount of defensive measures they had taken, plus the magical coverings, prevented them from degrading to the point of uselessness.

There were a few points of durability loss here and there when a few drops (or liters) of poisons reached somebody due to their carelessness, or in Katie’s case because she didn’t care. She could fight in her heavy armor just as well as in her small clothes. The only reason she wore it was because it covered her from head to toe, preventing people from recognizing her, and the very important fact that heavy armor was easy to customize with spikes.

Or in her own words: “If the armor doesn’t have spikes, is it even proper armor?”

The giant elemental-golem mix rose before them and they readied themselves for a fight. However, they couldn’t really feel intimidated, as after going against the titanic spider, something this small wouldn’t even elicit a gasp of surprise.

And well, they all watched dozens of videos of the fracture, so they were all intimately familiar with the monster.

Still, it roared and spewed the noxious liquid it was so fond of at them while the rain turned into a downpour and Sam’s skills were taxed to the maximum.

He started with a wedge-shaped air barrier in front of them that divided the liquid heading for them into two, sending it to the sides. The monster, seeing this, roared once again, reached down with its elongated arms, grabbed several greenly glowing stones the size of a small horse, and threw them at them with enough force that Sam half-expected it to shatter the sound barrier.

This time Katie reacted, jumping forward and smashing the stones into pieces with her greatsword.

The rest of the team followed after her, the poor elemental not suspecting at all what was going to happen to it.

“What did it drop?” Dan asked curiously as they stood around the remains of the giant elemental as the liquid that made its body – at least what remained of it – slowly began to evaporate as it turned into rainbow pixels.

Sam leaned down, picked up the items, and went through them one by one.

“Let’s see…reagent, reagent, reagent, trash, trash, oh a book…” He took a moment to look it over. “Poison Body, pretty cool if you’re into that kind of thing, but not for us.” Ignoring the disappointment on the faces he continued. “Some recipes for poisons and antidotes, aaand another book.”

“Useful?” Isabella asked.

Sam just handed the book over to Clarissa. “What do you think?”

“Contamination Purification?” she asked as she began to read the details. “Specifically, a cleanse spell to get rid of effects that have contamination properties. Cheap to cast, too…”

“So meh?”

“Meh, indeed.”

“Bummer.”

They left the fracture on the other side, where another tired-looking official was waiting for them to pay the tax. Either by handing over reagents and other drops or paying an amount based on the worth of the average drops.

Sam did a quick little math in his head and simply handed over the gold. The reagents would be useful for the guild alchemists while he was practically printing money.

He waited for the official to hand over the invoice, lest Lucy actually murder him, and left the building with the team.

“Let’s take a five-minute break. I need to check a few things,” he told them.

They all made agreeing noises, and the team broke up. Dan went with Clarissa to one of the many picnic tables dotted around the area, perfect for waiting groups, and began to chat. Isabella and Katie naturally headed for the training grounds set up so that those people who couldn’t sit or stand still for a few minutes would have a place to move around. There were already people there, most importantly, some people from Eternal Light were throwing challenging glances at Isabella and Katie was seemingly raring to go and educate them.

Ignoring the sounds of violence in the background, he opened his skill screens as he wanted to see how much the fracture increased them. The experience was negligible, as after Level 101, he needed some ludicrous amount to advance, but the skill increase was nice.

[Perfect Mana Core is now Level 5!]

[Mana Scales is now Level 130!]

[You gained the subskill, Infused Mana Scales!]

[Infused Mana Scales: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Your Mana Scales have become intimately familiar with your mana. Infusing them with different types of mana can be done in a lossless manner.]

[Mana Infused Body is now Level 7!]

[Mana Body Infusion is Level 5!]

[Mana Architecture is now Level 24!]

[Clean VII is now Level 10!]

[You learned Advanced Clean I!]

[Advanced Clean I: Level 0/25 (0%) (Active) No matter what is before you, you are capable of cleaning it. Be it rot or dust, this spell will vanish it. Capable of cleaning most physical and magical contaminants and of those it is not capable of vanishing instantly, it will instead degrade them over time. Grants you the Disease Immunity skill.]

[Disease Immunity: Level 86/100 (13%) (Passive) Thanks to your tireless efforts to make the world a cleaner place, you have developed immunity to diseases. Each level increases immunity to diseases by 1%.]

Well, getting a cleaning spell with DoT cleaning effect was new, but he was glad he finally got the Disease Immunity skill for real.

[Clean Aura is now Level 10!]

[Air Purification is now Level 10!]

[The two skills merged, and you gained Purification Aura!]

[Purification Aura: Level 0/50 (0%) (Active) (Toggle ON/OFF) An aura of purity envelops you, cleaning you and your allies of everything unpure. Extreme spring cleaning, ho!]

[Pure Body is now Level 8!]

[Cleaning Affinity is now Level 38!]

[Due to powering through the levels, you gained the subskill Overpowered!]

[Overpowered: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Doubles the effectiveness of all parts of the skill. All of it.]

[Wind Manipulation is now Level 94!]

[Greater Wind Affinity is now Level 85!]

[Wind Sense is now Level 4!]

[Shredding Wind is now Level 2!]

Sam couldn’t help but frown seeing the Overpowered subskill. It was a pretty common subskill, with the obvious downside of enhancing even the disadvantages of the skill. A countermeasure against power leveling skills.

Usually, he would be able to get a skill that counteracted the negatives, but he had no idea how the skill affected maids. Or what it would do when it was doubled.

‘I really need to figure out how to deal with that… whatever that is…’ he mused before continuing.

[Shadow of the Dragon is now Level 35!]

[You gained the subskill, Dragon Scales!]

[Dragon Scales: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) All dragons have impenetrable scales that protect them. Now you are also capable of donning this armor. Each level of the skill increases the defensive properties of shadows by 20%.]

[Greater Shadow Affinity is now Level 76!]

[You gained the subskill, Detailed Shadows!]

[Detailed Shadows: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) Your shadow creations are more detailed and the skill decreases the cost of these details by 10% for each skill level.]

[Illusionary Runes is now Level 75!]

[Corporeal Illusions are Level 24!]

[Lingering Effects is now Level 5!]

[Crisp Image is now Level 2!]

[You gained the subskill, Coloring Outside the Lines!]

[Coloring Outside the Lines: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) You started with runes but went outside the lines to create other illusions. It’s a little off but it works.]

Sam grinned, did some calculations, and realized that after a few more runs, they would be able to go with the familiars, which would mean that he could finally get Lucky up to Level 100 and start working on his evolution.

They met up next to the table where Sam stayed, Dan and Clarissa looking unchanged, while Isabella and Katie looked like they had some fun.

“Are they going to come after us?” he asked exasperatedly.

Katie just grinned. “It’s not like they didn’t hate us before this…”

“Yes, but there is a difference between general dislike, and actively going over and demolishing them,” he stated with an unamused look. “We already have a lot of enemies, please, don’t create more!”

Isabella and Katie looked at each other and hung their heads a little. “Sorry!”

Sam stared at them for a long moment, then when he saw the two young women begin to fidget, he nodded. “Alright, as long as you understand.”

“We will!”

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again!”

For some reason, as Sam looked into Katie’s earnest eyes, he didn’t really believe her.

“Fine…” he sighed. “Did you at least win?”

Katie immediately perked up and began babbling excitedly.

“Oh yes! They were like kyaaa and we were like zomm…”

After returning to the fracture, they began to properly farm it now that they knew their method would work. They simply smashed through every obstacle, killed the elementals as fast as possible, and basically tried to set the record for clearing the fracture.

Which was sadly impossible, after they thought to check the current record.

Apparently, one of the Abyss Vipers figured out how to absorb the poisonous liquid in the fracture. The explosion killed everyone and the boss, but they technically cleared the fracture in five minutes.

Still, they gathered reagents, poison-related skill books, a few weapons and armors here and there, a lot of recipes, and one very odd seed for poisoned apples until the rest of the team reached the desired level with the familiars following along shortly. For the last time, they left the fracture, paid the man what they owed, and hightailed into the forest, looking for the first free clearing so that Sam could lead his teammates through the same process he went through.