Except for the crazy elf trying to feed me torture poison, the training itself went smoothly. I learned about the types of monsters that appear in the lower levels of the labyrinth and how to deal with them, learned how to distinguish between several herbs, and learned about positions when forming a party.
"The hypothesis is that if you get injured in the labyrinth and heal naturally within the labyrinth without relying on potions or holy magic, you will gain physical resistance..."
"If you are continuously exposed to moderately strong fire without fire resistance magic, you will gain fire resistance skills..."
It was okay, except for the strange 'resistance' theory that kept coming up. Unlike the poisoning earlier, there were no actual success stories, so I couldn't just try it. Sometimes, she would explain by catching criminals in the labyrinth and experimenting on them, which was very unpleasant to hear, but I didn't pay attention because she didn't ask me to do it.
…
If there had been a success story, would she have beaten the trainee and roasted him? Even if they force you to drink poison, saying there's an antidote, maybe they really did.
"But, Instructor. Is it okay for an instructor to force a student to drink poison like that?"
"I've been disciplined a few times, but it's okay."
"?"
"That's not okay, you crazy bitch."
"While handing down the punishment, I was told that since it's true that the trainees can acquire the skill, I can proceed if the trainee agrees, so it's okay."
...
When you were poisoning me earlier, you said something like, "Didn't you say you would follow all the training?" So you're counting that as consent?
Well, it doesn't matter since I just have to use the [Sensory Block] skill when necessary. In fact, the skill's duration has ended several times, but I've been holding back the itching for a few seconds and continuing to cast the [Sensory Block] skill on myself. It doesn't cost much mana to cast it on myself. The duration has also increased compared to last time, so it's doable.
Alencia was worried as she saw me twitching my body for a moment due to the short tickling sensation I felt between using the skill again.
"Your pain resistance is amazing... Even experienced agents are famous for not being able to withstand torture using that poison."
"By any chance, instructor, Can you endure it?"
"When I found out about the poison, I had already reached the intermediate explorer level. That poison was already impervious to me. So I've never experienced it before."
The more I heard about this method, the more legendary it felt.
"But what does becoming an intermediate explorer have to do with being impervious to poison?"
".... Are you asking such a basic thing? Of course, it's because your body's own resistance increases as you train your body and mana."
To give a rough analogy, it's like in the MMORPG games I played on Earth, as you leveled up, your defense and magic resistance grew even without items or skills.
"Then, if you train enough, you wouldn't need a skill like [Poison Resistance]?"
"There's a limit to how long you can endure with mana. Let me give you a simple example. Let's say you gain the [Poison Resistance] skill. And that skill at level 1. How good do you think it would be?"
"Um... if it's level 1, it'd be weak, right?"
"Even if you get [Poison Resistance] at level 1, it'll be similar to my resistance to poison."
"....The level of an advanced explorer? Even though I don't know much about explorers, I've heard rumors about what an advanced explorer is like. They can collapse buildings with their bare fists, block swords swung by beginner explorers with their bare body, and use magic equivalent to a city's worth."
That's why I chose Alencia from the list of trainers despite hearing unpleasant things. Because I've heard that senior explorers are that great.
"Of course, this is limited to resistance to poison. In the first place, it's difficult to increase resistance to poison even if you train your mana and body. Even at the advanced explorer level, there are many who die from poison. That's why it's valuable to be able to obtain the [Poison Resistance] skill when you're a beginner explorer. That's why I wanted to give you the [Poison Resistance] skill by feeding you poison."
"Instructor..."
I thought she was just some elf crazy about resistance skills, but she's smarter than I thought. Considering the dangers of poison, there must be many people who would want to get the [Poison Resistance] skill even by drinking that kind of tickling poison.
That's why I didn't say much and just took the poison.
"In that sense, why don't you try out acquiring other resistance skills? With your patience, you might be able to endure the pain of being burned and get the [Fire Resistance] skill..."
"Okay."