"I get it now… for an item to be perfectly matched by the system and have all of its features, I need to be the one who made it," Sigma thought to himself and then smiled.
"You sure look happy wearing such a cheap bracelet…" Sabrina said while furrowing her eyebrows.
"You always have to open your mouth, don't you?" Sigma said and then sighed.
In any case, Sigma made the bracelet level up two times, and then he increased its endurance. He immediately felt a bit tougher. Now if an opponent super strong comes to attack him, instead of one punch, they will need two punches to kill him. Probably…
"By the way, when were those magic items created?" Sigma asked when Ed returned to his horse with the mirror in hand.
"They kind of always existed… we used a lot of those in the past, but most people that made them are dead and didn't pass the knowledge down," Ed explained.
Magic weapons probably would work well with Sigma's power. Still, since Eclair and Sabrina didn't have any item that enhanced their magic, they were supposed to be even rarer.
Sigma wondered if he should be able to make them once his Craft reached a high level… he had to work hard on that aspect since he had been neglecting it.
On the next fight, Sigma asked Ed to bring the claws of the giant penguin, and then he saw that they were pretty small and a bit curvy. Trying to make any weapons out of them without Earth Manipulation will be hard… moreover, they were quite flexible and organic, so that he couldn't reforge them.
"The number of encounters is pretty low… Although they are a bit like bandits, those guys sure are doing a good job here," Sabrina said while looking around.
While that made them travel faster, it made Sigma get less experience… so he had a hard time deciding feeling angry or satisfied. During that day, the group traveled for several hours, only stopping to fight a few times every half an hour and to have a quick meal. Thanks to that, they covered more or less thirty meters of distance before stopping at camp.
"At this rate, we should be able to reach the next city in one week," Ed said while he was checking the map. "We should be fine if we keep going northeast on a straight line, but it is kind of hard to tell where we are since there aren't many clear landmarks around."
The group was also camping under a tree that had been covered in snow. While Sabrina used her magic to get rid of it in a ten meters radius, the ground was still wet even though the magic fire lamp was keeping things around them.
"I feel like we can easily be seen in a long-distance… can't you make some earth walls?" Sigma asked.
"I suppose I can. It will be hard to be noticed it from a distance as well…" Sabrina and then she got up and went to work. "I will make one half a meters tall in order to let us see the surroundings by standing on guard duty."
Sigma nodded, and then, after having dinner, he began to carve some spears out of the sticks that he had found earlier. He could make Craft level up by using his mana, but he felt that using his hands and getting more skilled would also help at some point.
After a few attempts, Sigma tried to control a bit of the snow that was falling on the walls with Water Manipulation, and he tried to cool it down until it became ice… he could make it become quite cold but not turn into ice.
"Well, I guess this is supposed to be expected, given that Magic isn't my highest parameter," Sigma thought.
Sigma took the duty of watching the first part of the night after the others went to sleep. He spent those first few hours training in Water Manipulation. He confirmed that training with it was a bit less efficient than using the mana with Exp/Mana Conversion. Still, that was a necessary sacrifice to become more skilled instead of just more powerful.
Around one hour before midnight, Sigma was starting to get sleepy. Still, then he felt that weird feeling again of something crawling on his back… he was being watched, and he didn't think that it was Ed, Eclair, or Sabrina. They have been sleeping soundly for a while.
"I should pretend that I am just messing with the snow. The enemy shouldn't be that close yet," Sigma thought.
Sigma really needed a tracking skills or spells… unfortunately, he didn't know anyone that could use that yet. Still, if he couldn't track them, Sigma could at least try to find traces of them. Looking around aimlessly was too dangerous, but dexterity also improved his senses, so he turned around and closed his eyes to lure the enemy to move.
The plan worked wonderfully… without a campfire to make noise, only the wind was blowing and making any sound, and it was weak at that time of that night, so Sigma heard the sound of steps on the snow coming from the northeast area… the same direction that they were heading.
Sigma's bow was on the wall and on his side. He would need only a single second to grab it, summon an arrow and then fire it. However, he didn't hear the sound of the enemy approaching. It looked like they stopped fifty meters away and decided to stop right there. Eventually, Sigma heard steps.on the snow moving away… it seemed that the enemy wasn't willing to fight.