I wore a politely surprised face at Kezodilla’s generous gesture, hiding a greedy grin behind it. I may not have any good loots from our boss hunt because of the level gap penalty, but I’d probably get better items from him. It was in his best interests to give me good ones to help our party become stronger as a whole.

"The biggest hurdle in your case is juggling LS points," Kezo said while examining his inventory. His fingers danced across a floating screen in front of him. "At level twelve, you only have eleven free skill points. But you'll have a higher level when the Great Hunt starts, so you'll have more LS to play with by then."

"Right, right." I nodded.

"Not saying you should speed up your leveling, okay? I’m not pressuring you; go at your own pace. Farming low-level monsters for their loot is awesome Artas income."

"It's definitely good business," I said with a chuckle. "My plan is to use this week to earn as much as I can for gears. Next week I'll power level for more skill points." I'd forego several million Artas to make my character ready for the Great Hunt and hopefully earn more during the event to make up for my loss of income. I didn’t want to look pathetic during the event. And I was banking on my party mates to give me financial aid.

"Sounds good to me. Anyway, where have you spent your LS points so far? Rusting Grounds and what else?"

"Three points on Rusting Grounds because I don't have the Energy regeneration for higher levels. Six points on my shield skill. And I have two LS free." I didn't elaborate on what [Greater Pyro Shell] was because I wanted to keep my quest related to Mehubanarath a secret.

I doubted if Kezo was interested in my skill since it popped from only a hit or two. Facing monsters three times my level wasn't a good stage for my shell's performance.

"I see. What I'm thinking is changing your Rusting Ground to something better and one more debuff or CC skill."

"How about a taunt like the one you're using?" I asked.

"Enraging Taunt? It has too small of an AoE for you to safely use."

He had a point. What good was a taunt skill if I'd probably die walking up to a monster I wanted to aggro? "I'll stick to my trusty sling then," I said. My strategy had been working well, even if inconsistent at times. I'd leave taunt skills for when I was tankier.

Kezo initiated a trade with me. He placed three Ocadule Shards and began typing in the Artas amount. Show me the money!

[ Received: Ocadule Skill Shard: Gnawing Rot, Ocadule Skill Shard: Withering Brand, Ocadule Link Shard: Enfeebling Burden, 5,000,000 Artas ]

"This is too much!" The hypocrisy wasn't lost on me that I said that after accepting the trade. “I don’t think I could've earned this much if I used my time to farm Snowy Swinelings instead. That was our agreement."

"Consider it as me investing in our party," he said. "Use the money to buy a piece of good equipment with three slots for the Ocadule Shards."

"How many Artas did you give him?" Megan inquired of Kezo.

"Five million."

"I'll give you money too!" she excitedly told me, raising her hand like she was answering a question in class. "Though I don't have much right now since I used almost all my savings to buy Spell Bonded Totem."

Kezo whistled. "That is very expensive. But an investment that will last you a long time."

"Err, yeah." Megan sheepishly grinned. "But I'm not really planning to stay long as a Mardukryon. I told you that, didn't I? More like I bought it to give this Great Hunt my all. Go out with a bang and all that. So yeah, hmm...I can give Herald two million Artas."

"I-I don't know what to say," I said. Seriously, what do I say here? Should I keep pretending to reject their gifts while hesitantly receiving them? Past a certain limit, it'd actually become annoying on the part of the giver. "Thank you very much," I said, going for being simply grateful.

Megan looked at Nitana. "Huh?" her friend said. "Oh...okay, whatever. I'll also donate two million Artas." She grinned at me. "We do make a good combo."

"Thank you too, Nitana." Herald Stone plus anyone was going to be a good combo. Herald Stone alone was a good combo even if solo. It just works.

[ Received: 2,000,000 Artas ]

[ Received: 2,000,000 Artas ]

Wow, this is much easier money than if I stayed with the Swinelings. More importantly, I knew why they were giving me money. Yes, they wanted our party to be stronger, but they were also doing it out of friendship. A single boss hunt with them and I already had an idea of their personalities. In contrast, I wasn't so sure of SpartanDonkey's intentions. And he only offered to give me fifty thousand Artas. What a cheapskate.

"Let's talk a bit about the Ocadules I gave you," Kezo said. "Two Skill Shards and one Link Shard."

‘Gave’—I like that word. I opened my inventory to examine them.

Lvl. 1 Gnawing Rot: Spread a festering miasma over a small area (limited to two), causing any enemies entering it to lose 15 Armor and 15 Magic Armor each second inside it, up to a maximum of 105. The effect of the decay persists for 10 seconds after leaving the area.

Cost: 40 Energy

Duration: 20 Seconds

Cooldown: 5 Seconds

Lvl. 1 Withering Brand: A long-forgotten incantation that targets an enemy with a curse, reducing its Movement Speed, Attack Power, and Magic Power by 5%.

Cost: 35 Energy

Duration: 10 Seconds

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

Lvl 1 Enfeebling Burden: Enemies under the effect of linked debuff type skills will suffer an extra 5% more of their debilitating effects.

"Those are the Shards I have in my inventory that boost both physical and magic damage," Kezo explained. "Since I'm a physical DPS, I really don't care about magic damage that much. However, there are monsters that are strong against physical attacks but weak against magic, and vice versa, so it's important that we have both damage types in our party."

"And for me to use debuffs that boost both damage types?" I said. "The armor decay caused by Rusting Grounds only benefitted you."

"Yep, you got it. You can replace it with Gnawing Rot so the enemy's magic armor will also go down."

"I can't wait to see how much my damage will increase if you use that," said Megan as she clapped in excitement.

"The next skill, Withering Brand, is also a debuff. But instead of increasing our damage to the enemy, you'll decrease the enemy's own damage, making everything safer for us. I wanted to use this for tanking, but I didn't have the free LS points to make it worthwhile."

"This looks great—wait, it's an Epic Quality Shard?" I said. It was the same Quality as my [Greater Pyro Shell].

While browsing for potential Ocadule Shards to buy, I noticed that Common Shards usually had flat values, like [Rusting Grounds], or had very underwhelming even if they had percentage values. Skills with percentages were better than flat numbers because they'd scale to the late game. If Common Shards had useful effects like [Enraging Taunt], they'd have corresponding downsides like increasing the attack of taunted enemies.

Rare Quality Shards were a step about that, mixing flat values and low percentages.

And Epic Quality Shards like [Withering Brand] usually only had percentage values. The three stats it reduced—Movement Speed, Attack Power, and Magic Power—were also very impactful. Unlike [Gnawing Rot], which would increase the DPS of the party but wouldn't directly benefit me as a tank unless the boss dying faster counted, [Withering Brand] helped my survivability by reducing the enemy's damage dealt to me. Reducing Movement Speed would help with kiting.

"Isn't this too expensive to give to me?" I said. But don't take it back. A ‘thank you’ wouldn't suffice for a gift like this. I wanted him to know how that I was fully aware of how generous he was—I had encountered people who were appeased by that. And by asking this question, I was also confirming that this was indeed a gift.

Kezo sighed and looked up at the sky, probably recalling an emotional memory. This was the first time I saw him show any kind of...not negative, but not that positive expression either.

Megan, Nitana, and I looked at each other, puzzled by his reaction.

After a few seconds, he shrugged and turned back to us. He said, "To be honest...those are old items from my friends."

"They gave them all to you before they quit?" I asked, recalling what Megan had told me when she invited me to join their party.

Kezo nodded. "And I sold most of them at the auction and then went on a buying spree to upgrade my DPS gears. In hindsight, at the least, I should have kept the equipment of my tank friend so I'll have something high-end to use for our party instead of whatever I'm currently wearing.

"Since those Ocadule Shards were just given to me, it's not a big deal to give them away too. I'll be happy if you can use them to help our party. That's a much better fate than rotting in my inventory or getting sold to buy gear that I can't even wear because I have to tank for our party."

Oof, now that's a sad story on many levels. I changed the topic to blow away the awkward air hovering above us. "What about this Enfeebling Burden? I'll use it with the two other Shards you gave me?"

"That's right," he said, smiling again. "With the money I gave you, you can buy a good piece of armor with three slots and put them in. You did mention that you have Energy consumption problems, and yes, this will exacerbate it, but I think you can buy potions or—"

"I have potions!" Megan chimed in. "Finally, something I can help Herald with. I really don't have any useful Shards or gear to give you, but I do have a lot of Energy consumables in my inventory that I'll never use."

She gave me nearly three hundred Energy potions and about a hundred herbs that give Energy, and I thanked her profusely.

"You guys up for another go at the Rotted Cedarlyon?" Kezo said. "Since it's a mini-boss, it'll respawn thirty minutes after it died. A good ten minutes had passed already. Maybe we can kill other bosses or mini-bosses and then return to it."

"Is there a reason we're focusing on the Rotted Cedarlyon?" I asked.

"I chose it for our practice because it's the closest to a Fulgurian Mammoth in terms of health, tankiness, and damage," Kezo explained. To my benefit, he added. "They're the most numerous monsters during the Great Hunt, and they'll be our main to farm Reward Totems."

I recalled that Mehubanarath had mentioned the name 'Fulgurian Mammoth'. Our Mardukryon tribe must be hunting them like the ancient humans hunted migrating wooly mammoths during the Ice Age.

Kezo continued, "We'll do the same thing we did towards the end of our first run. I bet we could finish the boss in a couple of waves if I go with a tanky DPS build. And it'll be safer for Herald to herd the mobs if we finish early."