After cleaning up business in the small derelict village, I naturally brought all of the people there over to my city, Chalm. Their number didn’t even exceed 50, but they, fortunately, had a good opinion when it came to me. Furthermore, given the lack of support Lord Reign had given them in the past, it didn’t take a lot to convince them to abandon a couple of shacks.
As for the buildings, I had the dungeon consume them. I wanted it so when Lord Reign investigated, there would be absolutely nothing he could use. They became food for the dungeon and were digested into miasma. The miasma we had taken from the Widow’s Dungeon was volatile and it quickly dissipated once the dungeon’s barrier was brought down. The miasma that was produced by my own dungeon seemed to be different though.
Of course, I didn’t get any rewards for dismantling my own dungeon, but at least I could keep the miasma. I was able to collect it freely, even once the dungeon was gone. I felt like I had some kind of affinity for this miasma. Rather than feeling like it had a corrosive, destructive effect, it actually felt calm and eager to be molded.
That’s when I came to the realization I had finally found my third source of concentrated mana. At the moment, there were three things, which were best described as a concentrated mana, which could be applied to skills to create new skills. Any individual could only select one skill per mana source to modify into a particularly powerful spell.
We had created a unique resurrection spell, the god eye identification, a spirit fire enchantment, a shadow imbued disguise and a powerful shadow attack, to name of a few of the skills my girls have gained using mana as a reagent. These mana sources came from the natural talents of Celeste and Miki. Miki could create spirit fire using her nine-tails. Meanwhile, Celeste could create fairy dust.
Now, a third source had arrived, miasma. I could create miasma by creating a temporary dungeon and dissolving items with it to extract their latent mana. However, upon realizing I could do this, I found that Shao’s Shadow Knight already had a similar ability. Dark Destruction was a recently unlocked skill that could target an object and break it down into miasma. It worked best with magical items and wasn’t as efficient as turning things into a dungeon and dissolving them that way. However, what it lacked in efficiency it made up for in ease of use.
I did eventually test out elemental stones, but they are so common, that had they worked, the world would have assuredly known about them. The stones do work as reagents. They can enhance similar elemental skills to make them stronger. For example, a firestone could increase the power of a fireball. An Intermediate Mage might be able to produce the spell at the strength of an Advanced Mage. If you have the Combination skill, these items can also be combined with neutral skills to give them an elemental effect.
For example, my Divine Aura spell combined with a fire stone could give a sword both a fire and a holy effect for the duration of the spell. Considering undead are weak against both fire and holy, this would have made those attacks more powerful.
Although, I had some desires to keep studying this system, and perhaps have each of the girls develop a new skill with their miasma combination, I had other more important things to worry about. Chalm was preparing for war.