"This armor is amazing!" Markus laughed as he kicked the final corpse aside. The battle had been won— rather easily, too— mainly thanks to Markus, "Now that my defense is high enough to resist their attacks, I don't have to worry about being injured."
"Weren't your legs bit a few times? Didn't that damage you?"
"Well, a little," Markus admitted, "But my health pool is too large for a few attacks to even dent my HP."
Edward laughed, then looked at Brandon.
"Let's level up before you open the chests. It's probably best you have as much Luck as possible, first," Edward suggested. His brother nodded, then sat down and began the level-up process. Edward did the same, quickly opening his status screen.
He added all of his stats to Endurance in hopes that it would increase his defense to an acceptable level. Because of the addition, his Defense stat reached 108 and his HP reached 500. Afterward, he looked at his new skills.
︽
Skills Available: [Minor Mount Mastery], [Talon Strike], [Minor Perception]
︾
Edward quickly ignored Talon Strike, as the skill wouldn't be of use to him. He considered [Minor Perception] for a moment, but ultimately chose to learn the [Minor Mount Mastery] skill instead. Minor Perception wasn't a skill related to his Origin, which probably meant he would be able to learn it later. His new skill, [Minor Mount Mastery], allowed him to ride basic mounts like horses and mules. He hoped to upgrade this over the next few levels— until he could ride Ikarus.
Ikarus also chose to put all of his stats into Endurance— the dragon desperately needed more health if he wasn't going to die again. This brought his Defense to 123 and his HP to 425. Edward didn't know what skill he chose— if he even had the option.
Leila put half of her points into Endurance, bringing her Defense to 78 and her HP to 350. The other ten stat points, she placed into Wisdom. This brought her Damage stat to 145 and her MP to 650. She upgraded her Dragon Tame skill to the Advanced level.
Markus put all of his points into Wisdom, probably to allow him more juice to heal with, which brought his MP to 195. Markus upgraded his healing spell, bringing it to the Advanced level.
Brandon put ten of his points into luck and allocated the final five to Endurance. His luck was now 130 while his Defense had been raised to 53 and his HP was now 225. He upgraded his skill [Minor Predictability], which allowed him to see the likelihood of certain events, to the Basic level.
After everybody was done leveling up, Brandon turned to the treasure chest and pulled out two items. The first item was a set of black fingerless gloves. The gloves were made out of wool, though they appeared frayed and damaged. As such, Edward believed the gloves might end up falling apart just as soon as somebody wore them, but Edward didn't let himself judge it too early.
︽
Gloves of Deadwood
+11% MP
︾
The second item was a small glass ball. The glass ball was about the size of a marble, perhaps a little larger, and had a massive crack running down the middle.
︽
Eye of Advanced Appraisal (BROKEN)
Allows the user to view the whole status screen of other players with the [Appraisal] skill
Can be fixed by a magical engineer with the Master rank. Broken in its current state.
︾
"Ooh, that's fancy," Brandon muttered as he looked at the glass eye, "I wonder if we'd have to carve out one of our eyes, though."
"I hope not," Edward sighed, "Let's pocket the eye, for now. Leila, you should use the gloves."
"Let's hope they're fireproof," She sighed as she stepped forward. Leila put the gloves over her hands and then swung her palm toward the wall. Magical flames erupted from the gloves and smashed against the wall with the same force as her ordinary attacks. Leila immediately looked at the gloves and inspected them for damage. To her delight, however, they were just as damaged as they were before, but not more, "These are nice!"
"Brandon, how close are we to the boss room?" Edward asked. Brandon quickly pulled out his map to check, then smiled.
"Maybe a five-minute walk," He answered. In the next moment, however, he turned to Edward, "We should do that tomorrow, though. It's getting late."
Edward checked the time and found that they had been here for nearly seven hours, now. There were only forty minutes until the clock struck midnight.
'Markus doesn't need that much sleep, anymore, considering his new stats,' Edward thought to himself, 'But Brandon doesn't know that.'
"Sure, let's pick this up tomorrow," Edward smiled. Brandon and Markus nodded before both of them logged out. Thankfully, they had already cleared the floor of monsters, so it was safe to log out. By the time they got back on, only the floor boss would be waiting for them.
Edward looked to Leila, then said, "I'll give your number to Mrs. Snow once I wake up, so you should be expecting a call within the next few minutes, hopefully."
"Thank you," Leila nodded before she, too, logged off. Edward was left alone in the room with just his dragon and an empty chest to keep him company. He sighed, then opened his menu and logged out. Luckily, the dungeon wouldn't reset even if they had all logged out— Edward made sure to research that beforehand, so they wouldn't have to redo the entire dungeon.
—
When Edward opened his eyes, he found the familiar ceiling of the expensive apartment overhead. As he removed his DDS, Ikarus teleported onto the other end of the bed.
"You're getting close to level fifteen, bud," Edward smiled as he sat up to face his dragon, "I wonder if you'll grow bigger."
Ikarus smiled at the thought before running off to the kitchen. Edward quickly stood up and took a shower before he got something to eat. As he got dressed he made sure to cover his scales, then left his apartment and headed for the elevator.