The girls restored their original jobs, and I concentrated back on White Mage and Basic Magician. After some significant gains from gaining the first level of Basic Magician, I suspected I could have more gains for white mage by mastering the basics.
With the two girls fighting in front of me, I was far more comfortable taking a basic role. I still had my sword, and I could fight with a basic level swordsmanship with the Spirit Fire and Divine Aura enhanced sword. The ghosts were taken down quickly. Since I already had a lot of this floor mapped out, I decided to combine Map and Detect Treasure to truly pick up everything the floor had. It'd give the girls more opportunities to gain experience and would also increase our profits, so I considered it a win-win.
Every floor seemed to contain a dozen or so treasure locations. Some were just a small pouch of coins shoved into a corner. Others were a hidden alchemy ingredient. No treasure chests or anything like that. Some of the stuff was part of the décor, and if I hadn't had my treasure finder on, I never would have realized they were worth anything at all. For example, a certain painting had replaced the eyes with jewels that I was able to pop out. Also, a few of these treasures were attached to traps too, but with Detect Trap, I was always aware of it.
As luck would have it, Disarm Trap was the level 10 ability for a Scout, and since Lydia had it, I had it too. In short, I was able to copy her skill and remove the trap before clearing out everything one floor at a time. While I could copy the girl's skills, they weren't as good as the girls could use them. My fireballs were weaker than Miki's. Furthermore, I had to spend mana to copy the skill, and then mana to cast the skill, so it was more expensive for me to use the skills too. In short, unless it was for convenience, it was more affordable to just let the girls use the skills themselves.
By the time we cleared level 16, I was up to level three in Basic Magician. We continued on to the 17th , and then the 18th, and 19th. It took two days, but we finally managed to enter the familiar library I had abandoned. The door had long been open, waiting for us to engage in the mysterious boss. I didn't know what monster awaited us. It was still early, but we decided to break.
Over the intervening two days, I gained a level in White Mage and was now at level ten Basic Magician. Since Basic Magician enhanced mana and spellcasting status, I felt more powerful as a White Mage with it. As far as skills go, my White Mage level 23 ability was called Armor. It was a spell that temporarily increased someone's defense. It wasn't like a magic shield or anything. Just an enhancement spell, which was honestly preferable for me.
As for Basic Magician, I already knew what to expect from using skill analysis on Miki, but the skills I got were Fire, Water, Earth, and Air Control, Mana Blast, Create Earth, and Fireball. I already had Create Flame and Create Water. It turned out, Basic Magician really was basic. You first needed to be able to manipulate the element you wanted to use and then create it. Only after that did you get something like an attack. Well, level five was Mana Blast. Once you gained enough elemental control, you could create a mana attack. Then, Fireball finally became an option at level 10.
As for the girls, they also leveled a bit. Lydia was up to level 35, and Miki was 31. With a deep breath, I looked down the stairway. We should be able to take out the boss safely. We had to.