Abel didn't feel like taking the armor off from his skeletons. From his experiences before, going inside the Rogue's Encampment himself was just going to take too much time. If he just left Rib Bone no.1 and no. 2 in the Blood Moor, there would be no problem for them to kill the hell creatures that were spared.
Speaking of which, Abel just realized something. With the equipment of a knight on them, no one was going to notice that the Rib Bones were actually skeletons. If they weren't so weak right now, there would be no problem if he was bringing them out to fight in the real world.
Once Rib Bone no.1 and no.2 were brought into Blood Moor, Abel teleported himself back to the Rogue's Encampment. It had been about four days since he came to this reality. He wasn't hungry yet, and he felt like he still had a lot of stamina left. The strengthened "ration potion" worked very well for him.
That being said, unlike last time, he wasn't planning to stay for ten days here. He was sent here from his own home. He came from the territories of the dwarves, so he had to spend less time if he wanted to train in the dark world.
Abel opened up a portal and went back to the guest room inside Moon Guardian City. When he closed up the seclusion circle on the ground, he realized that it was midnight. There was still some time, so he fell on the big bed in front of him and went to sleep.
The next morning, when Abel woke up, the first thing he did was to look inside the Horadric Cube with his power of the Will. He wanted to check how Rib Bone no.1 and no. 2 were doing
From what he could see inside the Horadric Cube's skill tree, Rib Bone was just about to slain a fallen with its word. On the other hand, Rib Bone no. 2 was targeting a fallen wizard. Instead of giving the fallen wizard a chance to attack, it just kept on swinging its sword at it. There were tens of fallen that were coming at them, but because of the frozen enhancement technique, all of them were moving so slowly that you could almost walk away from them.
When Abel withdrew his power of the Will, he could see that the attribute point of the "resurrection of the skeleton" spell was increased by eight hundred. The two Rib Bones just killed about more than four hundred hell creatures. Once he saw them again inside the Rogue's Encampment, they would certainly be on a completely different level than before.
After brushing his teeth, Abel opened the door of his room. He then saw a dwarven servant that was waiting for him.
"Good morning, Master Abel!" the dwarven servant bowed, "Please follow me to the dining room. Your breakfast is ready to be served."
"Good morning, Loraine!" Abel said as he saw Loraine at the dining table. There wasn't anybody else around. It was just her sitting in a chair.
Abel took some time to look around this dining room. While the chairs and tables definitely belonged to the size of a human, something about them just made it seem very dwarven.
The breakfast today was lamb meat and rock fruits. Rock fruits were a fruit that was typical to the Great Dividing Mountain Range. Because they were grown on the cliffs, it was very hard to harvest them after the fruits became ripe. The lambs, too, were a special treat around this region. The goats also lived around the mountain cliffs. There were a particular tenderness and uniqueness in the taste of their meat.
Loraine didn't like eating meat, though, so she just stared at the lamb when it was passed in front of her. When Abel took it away and ate it himself, a grateful smile appeared on her face.
"Thank you, Abel!" Loraine said in a somewhat shy voice.
Abel wasn't hungry, to be honest. The ration potion's effect had not passed yet. He might have to wait for a few days if he wanted to feel hunger again.
After breakfast, Abel and Loraine came to visit Ivan, the Moon Guardian City's lord, after the guide of a servant. When they saw him, they noticed that there were six dwarven warriors behind him that were wearing armadillo armors.
Armors. Shields. War hammers–
They must be the legendary dwarven armadillo warriors. While they weren't very fast, they had no boundaries in what kind of landscape they could walk on: Jungles, mountains, and swamps; they could travel freely in all of them. Due to their very useful ability to dig holes in the ground (kind of like armadillos), they could attack their enemies from the most unimaginable angles possibles.
Just by sensing their presence, Abel could tell that all six of them were at the same level as a knight's commander. If they had their mounts with them, they could be just as strong as Abel in terms of their fighting capability. Well, that was if Abel didn't use his spells.
Behind the six dwarven armadillo knight's commanders, there was a young man that was being carried by two dwarves. The two dwarves were wearing magic capes, whereas the young man had a sickly look on his face as he was lying flat as he was being carried.
"They are the Borton six brothers," Lord Ivan said as he introduced the six dwarven armadillo knight's commanders, "After fighting together for their entire lives, their teamwork is unlike anything else you have seen before. While it's just the six of them, they could probably take on double that number if the enemies were in the same rank as them."
Without saying anything, the six dwarven armadillo knight's commanders gave a greeting towards Abel. Abel wasn't sure why, but he knew that there was something odd about them. Maybe they were the bodyguards the young dwarf that was being carried. In fact, the way they behaved was almost like they were going to be attacked at any moment.
But first, Abel decided to return a bow to them.
"And these two," Lord Ivan introduced the two wizards to Abel, "This is the Wizard Kipling, and that is Wizard Aitken."
When Abel saw these two, he quickly crossed his arms and performed a wizard's greeting.
"It's a pleasure to see you, Master Abel!"
Since the two wizards were still carrying the young dwarf, the most they could do to greet Abel was to nod their heads. That being said, they were still very polite in their tone.
Ivan said with a pitiful look in his eyes, "And this, finally, is my dear niece Bernie. He's in great pain because of the chilling poison. Because of how hard it is for him to move, we had to have someone carry him with a stretcher."
Bernie spoke with a sickly purple on his face, "Thank you so much for letting us use your sky sparrow, Master Abel. If you didn't, well, I might look kind of hurt right now, but if you didn't- ACK ACK- I would be dead already."
Despite how energetic Bernie's voice was, he was coughing very badly. He tried to laugh out loudly, but the coughs just didn't stop.
"Stay quiet for a bit, Bernie!" Lord Ivan said, then shook his head, "Save that energy for the journey back. We have a long way ahead of us!"
Bernie wasn't listening, though. He just laughed even louder. "And I thought we dwarves never got tired!" he said as he coughed even harder.
Abel could see how terrible Bernie's state was. Just now, even though there were about five meters of distance between them, he could feel the chilling cold qi that was being emitted from Bernie's body.
Bernie turned the Wizard Aitken and pleaded, "It's getting cold, Wizard Aitken. You mind if you give me some of that good wine you have on you?"
Bernie might seem a little obnoxious, but he sure was optimistic in even such a dire situation. Abel just had a lot more respect for him now.
"Wine? Here, I've got some," Abel said as he took out a synthesized rum from his portal bag. Wizard Aitken was going to give away his, but Abel was a lot quicker.
When Bernie took the rum, he started chuckling, "A crystal bottle? Master Abel, that's a little too fancy, don't you think. Are you sure that this rum is that good?"
"Only one way to find out," Abel replied. Because of how many crystal bottles he's had, he never saw them as valuable in any stretch of the mark. He would collect after he drank the synthesized potions he's made, so now he just used the spares as wine bottles.
When Bernie opened the cap, a strong smell caught every dwarf off guard. They did not expect it to be this good. When Bernie saw the amber-colored goodness that was inside, he didn't even bother using a cup. When he wallowed the bottle down his throat, he could feel a streak of flame that was traveling throughout his body. Eventually, the heat became so strong that it extinguished the chilling qi that was inside of him.
"Wow! This is some good stuff!" Bernie screamed as he got up from his stretcher. After waving his arms for a bit, he jumped down and jumped up for about two times. This was very different from the sickly image he had back there.
All the dwarves were shocked to see this. After putting down the stretcher, Wizard Aitken quickly grabbed Bernie with his arms. He wanted to do a full-body scan with his power of the Will.
"What is it, Wizard Aitken?" Lord Ivan asked impatiently. He didn't know what miracle had occurred to his niece, so he was eager to find out as quickly as he could.
"Unbelievable," Wizard Aitken said in awe as he released Bernie from his grasp, "The chilling poison has been temporarily suppressed. If Bernie doesn't use his combat qi, he can move like just any other regular person."