That is easier said than done, however. Attempting to raid a dungeon by myself is possible with plenty of preparations, but if anything goes horribly wrong during the raid, I would be royally screwed. Sadly, there is no one that I can rely upon to watch my back, not unless I forcefully awaken their bloodlines.
And to be able to do that, I would need to have a pure Blood Crystal. With one, I can locate my mother instantly, using her belongings as medium.
I examine some of her belongings that I have gathered throughout the house. It was when I had looked for her in the house. While I cannot use her belongings to pinpoint her exact location without a Blood Crystal, I can still make use of them.
Before that, however, I need purified Fire Essence. The power to manipulate magical fire will allow me to do a lot of thing. Most importantly, it will allow me to forge weapons and armours and more.
Acquiring purified Fire Essence is much easier than acquiring Life Essence, considering that high heats and flames would not transform Fire Crystal into another element. In fact, it would increase the purity of the resulting Fire Essence. That is to my advantage.
I immediately get to work with all the items I have managed to sell to the Shop System. It will still take time to melt the Fire Crystal to obtain Fire Essence though, as Fire Crystal has natural high resistance to heat. Of course, I negate this resistance by adding more fuel to the flames, making it burns hotter.
While that is happening, I buy a Death Crystal from the Shop System. Placing it in a tray, I take out my fountain pen and start dripping Life Essence onto the Death Crystal.
Life and Death counteracts each other destructively.
A powerful mage can fuse the two elements together and make use of them. Sadly, I am not a powerful mage. Nor I am a mage even though my understanding of magic would make me a Great Grand Master or higher.
Also, I am not trying to fuse the two elements together. I am trying to cancel each other out to acquire a Mana Crystal. Mana Crystal contains natural mana without any elemental attributes to them. It can be found pretty much everywhere within a dungeon. Once the Zone collapses, they will start growing pretty much everywhere.
It takes precise amount of Life Essence to counteract the Death Essence within the Death Crystal, and I fail several times, but luckily, I can always start again until I get it right. It would have been a lot easier if I have all the necessary tools.
As soon as the ominous dark aura shrouding the Death Crystal dissipates and the crystal itself changes in colour, I know I have the making of a Mana Crystal in my hand. I steady myself in order to not fuck up the last few steps, and soon enough, I sell the Mana Crystal to the Shop System.
With Mana Crystal, I can make Mana Potions, allowing me to restore my pitiful mana pool. That is one problem out of the way. The other problem lies within –
The vines are knocking against the barrier of my Headquarter. They are not actively attacking it. More like probing. I am sure they are sentient, and because of their presence everywhere here, no monsters dare to enter this area.
And that is a good thing, as it allows me the peace and quiet to continue working without rest.