It had taken a lot of practice over the past month and a half. Greg had lost count of how many times he had repeated the motions of summoning an arrow, nocking it, drawing, and releasing. His aim had been to make the move as smooth as possible. From the summoning to the release, there shouldn't be any breaks or pauses of any kind. No arrow should be in his hand longer than a fraction of a second unless he intentionally left it there. Shooting the bow roughly a thousand times a day, for the past month and a half, Greg had succeeded in becoming just as fast and fluid in his motion as he'd set out to be. The success, however, was only partial. He had exchanged accuracy for speed. Because of how little time he spent aiming, Greg wasn't certain of hitting anything more than four meters away from him. Four meters was his kill zone, beyond that, however, it was a coin toss whether his arrow would meet its mark or not. Committing the names that Sir Joram had called out to memory, Greg went

A third arrow had already been taken out from his storage ring and nocked on the bow. Greg, however, didn't pull on the string like he had made the mistake of doing on his first dungeon run. If he needed to attack once more, he could draw and release in less than a second. But to pull on the bowstring and hold onto it would put him at risk of prematurely ending the dungeon run. Meanwhile, Sir Lark, the man that Greg was now coldly regarding, had frozen like a rabbit caught in the sights of a dangerous predator. At the back of his mind, Greg couldn't help but note that the man's eyes could indeed grow wider as the man looked at the bow that was suddenly in Greg's hands. Greg didn't plan on killing the man as he suspected that it would cause a lot more trouble than it was worth. Still, his expression was of one ready to take a life at a moment's notice. There was, of course, a chance that letting the man live would come to bite him in the ass. Greg, however, suspected that it wouldn't.

Fuck!" Greg couldn't help but mutter even as he rose from his bed. A night of sleep had done nothing to assuage his annoyance at the merchant for becoming his undoing. Just because he'd gotten a supposed mage as his bodyguard, the man had gotten it in his head that he could strong-arm the head of a criminal gang into doing his bidding. The Spider queen hid her features behind a black veil and loose robes whose long sleeves hid even her hands. From her ramrod-straight posture and steely tone of voice, however, Greg could tell that she was a woman who wasn't easily bent to the whims of others.The meeting went about as expected. Everyone ended up dead!Greg managed to kill the woman and the six members of the spider gang that stood guard over her. By the time the last man fell, however, Greg had sustained fatal injuries. Apart from profusely bleeding from a few nasty wounds, Greg also had one of their kukri-like blades sticking out of his gut. Greg would have killed the merchant himself

The reason Greg wasn't as bothered by this new development as the healer seemed to be was twofold. The first was the dungeons. One of the rules of the dungeon was that Greg could only carry over innate abilities. For the past one and a half months, after his mana pathways started to take shape, Greg had been able to perform the most rudimentary of magic. That is to say, whatever this new system of magic was, the dungeon seemed to recognize it as a legitimate one capable of both storing and manipulating mana. The other reason was the fact that it was Olivia's original that had worked on and refined the healer's idea. Olivia may claim that she doesn't know much about cores and mana pathways since she's always been above the nine tiers. Greg, however, didn't for one-second think that the same was true of her original. Even if she never had one herself, there was no doubt in Greg's mind that the primordial knew a lot about cores and mana pathways. Chances that she would make the same mist

She should have stopped him! She should have admonished him! She should have told him that they were playing in dangerous waters and that everything could come crashing down on them. Her only response, however, was to smile lustfully at him even as he pulled the seat back for her. "You are so bad," Was all she could mutter in response as she sat down on the proffered chair. "But I make you feel real good, don't I?" Nalia could feel chills coursing through her as the boy leaned in close to her ear and whispered the response. Unable to refute the boy's words, Nalia could only turn her blushing face away from him. In so doing, she realized that she had been so focused on Roka that she hadn't even noticed the three beautiful, bright-amber candles that were set on a small bronze candelabra in the middle of the table. It was still early in the day, and so there wasn't a lack of light in any sense of the word. And yet, somehow, the candle just added an ambiance to the room that made it fe