With the warning from the Marquess and Countess lingering in my mind, I decided that researching the various Dungeons that were located inside of Tragon would be a good use of my time, and since I was going to be frequenting the library anyways to pester- I mean learn from my loving and amazing tutor Kolia, I could use my breaks to research said Dungeons and create an itinerary for our trip.
If I could get a loose, general understanding of the various Dungeons that we might be visiting, we could better plan on how we wanted to tackle this 'challenge' that was ahead of us, since the idea of an overpopulated Dungeon just waiting for us to cut down to the proper size sounded like a lot of fun and a good way to grow, and to do so I wanted to understand what those Dungeons would contain.
What type of monsters, what possible evolutions, what they had that was valuable, what they could be used for, the terrain, the natural resources, amount of area they covered, nearby cities or towns, which monsters could be used for sustenance and how to safely prepare them...
There was a lot that I needed to research this coming week, and I needed to do that on top of the other things that I was planning on doing as well; training my body and mind, enchanting the new gear, formulating some new spells...
That was on top of the research I wanted to do on our available resources and be able to better utilize my enchanting abilities, the training I needed to do on Lust Mana still...
And THEN there was the menial tasks that needed to be done and took up time, or the 'breaks' that were going to be taken randomly whenever we had time available; planning around those wasn't the easiest, and especially not when Jahi could be rather sporadic with her needs.
Yeah, this week would be hectic, and we still needed to get our gear together and have transport and resources arranged for our journey; stocking the carriage, plotting the route, and planning the trip would also take more time, so I got to work as soon as I could, finishing the conversation with the family before heading to the library, picking out the various tomes I would need to comb through and stacking them on the table.
"What's all this for? That's... a lot of books to read. Damn girl! You're getting more?!"
I chuckled softly as Kolia looked up from her side of the table to see the large pile that I had pulled together, roughly a dozen and a half books stacked up already while I went back to another shelf, picking up another two to add to the pile.
"There's a lot to do. We're going to the Tragon Kingdom in a week and 'touring' the Dungeons, so I need to get prepped. Know anything about them, or..?"
The Serpentkin pursed her lips as she scanned the twenty books I had grabbed, each one covering a different topic that I wanted to look into.
"Not a lot, but I know that the two most common types of mana in that Kingdom is Wind and Earth oddly enough; something about the open plains and large mountains that separate the Kingdom from the Labyrinthian. That mountain range is sorta kinda apart of Lord Ter'Ran's domain too, so it does have a bit of a richer mana concentration compared to the rest of the Kingdom. Besides that..."
Leaning back into her chair, the Serpentkin looked towards the ceiling for a moment as she thought about it, eventually adding "The monsters are rather basic too, but it has been awhile since that whole Crusade fiasco and the emergence of those creatures... so they've likely evolved... Not much help I can be in that regard; I don't know the environment of those Tragon Dungeons that well. Sorry."
Taking a seat, I shrugged and reached for the first book, opening it up and scanning the for an idea of what I might want to take a look at first.
"It's fine. To bring us back towards something that you are knowledgeable in, I gave those Magic Pens a try earlier, and I have to say they make quite the difference. More so than I thought they would..."
Kolia snickered as she smirked at me, resting her chin on her palm and just judging me for a moment before saying "Who woulda thunk that using a tool specifically for something would improve your results doing that specific thing~? Revolutionary, I know!"
Looking up from the book, I gave her a blank look that made her chuckle as she added "Kat, there's a lot that can be done better 'by hand' and completely unassisted, but no one in this world can claim to have such perfect mana control that a Magic Pen would result in a similar or worse result then doing it entirely themselves. Really, no offense Kat, but that seemed rather obvious as a result, no?"
"No need to be snide."
She just snorted in reply before pushing her book aside, freeing up some space as she put a blank paper down, grabbing a normal pen and scribbling some stuff down as she said "The difference between unassisted enchanting and using a Magic Pen is rather large, Kat, and not just for the control it provides.
The largest benefit that is far harder to come by is being able to push mana deeper into the material, which wastes less of the materials mana storage and allows you to do more with the material."
Showing me the page, Kolia tapped the two math formulas she used to show me the difference that the Magic Pens had made.
The Serpentkin began to explain the difference in more depth as she dove into the equations and formulas, showcasing and proving her claim with theories and math as best she could as we sat in the library.