Chapter 106.3

106 Part 3

Both stones flew at about the same speed.

However, while the regular stone split the branch it half, the reinforced one pulverized the point where it came in contact with the branch.

There was a clear difference in power.

Perhaps the reason why its power had changed so much was because of their weight difference.

Throwing a sponge ball won’t hurt you, but throwing an iron ball of the same size would definitely result in a serious injury.

Of course, the difference in weight wasn’t as evident in this case.

However, Rhea’s Throwing ability level was 5. And its tree was enhanced to +1 as well.

This high degree of proficiency made a big change in each attack’s destructive power, even though the weight difference was slight.

If you want to fight stronger monsters in the future, strengthening your weapons is indispensable.

If you never get a stronger weapon, no matter how high your Throwing level is, you’ll eventually stop dealing enough damage with it.

Just like the first adventurers who dared to challenge a dungeon with pistols…

Haruki could get stronger weapons whenever he needed to deal with stronger monster

But that was not the case for Rhea.

Rhea had no other weapon but the Potato Stones she threw.

And those stones had ended up becoming something that couldn’t be replaced.

“Well… What should I do now?”

Haruki scratched his chin.

The Potato Stones were in a growing jar.

No matter how much he could enhance the Potato Stones, it didn’t necessarily mean that the enhanced ones would multiply inside the jar.

“Hmm…”

Haruki groaned while thinking.

Then, a ray of light appeared in his brain.

— Will it work? I don’t know…

However, he did know that if he made a mistake, he would lose the points he had spent.

But it looked like it was worth a try.

Haruki took out the Skill Board, believing in the Potato Stones.

He enhanced all of the Potato Stones in the jar to +1.

There were a total of 13 Potato Stones.

There were fewer stones in the jar than what Haruki had expected.

He had 2448 points left.

“Rhea, try sucking up all of the Potato Stones in the jar.”

“(?)”

Rhea seemed confused, but still put her suction ivy inside the jar.

One by one, she absorbed all of the Potato Stones.

As Haruki watched for changes in the Skill Board, a slight smile began to appear on his face.

“I knew it.”

Even after absorbing all of the enhanced Potato Stones, the regular Potato Stones didn’t reappear on the board’s display.

The growing jar had the ability to literally multiply the items stored in it.

If there were no items inside it, then it would multiply based on the amount it had.

Haruki enhanced all of the Potato Stones in the jar while the multiplication process had stopped.

As a result, even if the Potato Stones were to multiply, the new ones that would be generated would become the enhanced version instead of the regular one.

This wouldn’t have been possible if the jar was the “jar that registers the first item stored inside it” as Akane had previously described it.

It was a trivial mistake on Akane’s appraisal, who couldn’t deliver a detailed appraisal at the time.

However, Akane’s mistake was understandable.

Because the jar started to produce new items once the old ones were taken out.

Since it was impossible to replace the contents in the usual way, there was no way to assert the possibility that the contents could change.

Thanks to Haruki using his Skill Board to trick the jar into creating enhanced Potato Stones, that was now an established fact.

“Since we’ve come this far, I might as well MAX them out… Huh?”

After tapping on the board one more time, Haruki’s jaw dropped when he saw the number displayed.

[Would you like to enhance Potato Stone?]

[Enhancement level 1/3]

[Points needed: 200pt]

[Y/N]

“That’s quite a jump…”

It needed only 10 points to enhance each stone to +1, but the +2 enhancement cost 200 points.

Haruki had 2448 points left.

He was a little too short on points to increase all 13 Potato Stones to +2.

Not replacing all of the jar’s contents, even after enhancing them, could mean that the multiplication process could potentially fill the jar with +1 Potato Stones.

Which would essentially be a waste of points.

But why did the cost increase so much?

Could it be that the Potato Stones would get a new ability at +2 or something like that?

Haruki thought about it, but he had no way to be sure.

On the other hand, he simply didn’t have enough points to try it, no matter how curious he was about it.

If he used his points just to try things out like this, he would soon run out of them.

“Aw, I wanted to go all the way through since it seemed like a good chance…”

Haruki sighed.

It looked like he would have to give up on that plan until he earned more points.

The way to earn more points seemed simple enough.

All he needed to do was to get to the bottom of a dungeon, and then touch the dungeon’s core.

For someone like Haruki, who had only reached the 15th floor of a dungeon, it was a fairly simple task compared to earning Skill Points.

But upgrading Rhea’s artillery was really going to take a lot of effort.

— Let’s work hard on earning enough points.

Haruki sighed again, and was about to put away his Skill Board one more time.

Then…

“–!?”

A single item caught Haruki’s eyes.

He put his backpack on the floor and took a step back.

However, the name of that item didn’t disappear from the screen.

The reason why it didn’t disappear even though it had moved away from Karen and Rhea was that it moved with Haruki.

In other words, it was something Haruki was equipped with.

“So that means… No way…”

With his trembling fingers, Haruki tapped on the item’s name.

[Would you like to enhance Mask (Seal)]

[Enhancement level 0/3]

[Points needed: 2000pt]

[Y/N]

“I’ll enhance the Masked Man himself!!”