My children, who were playing around,

We told them not to make a sound

the streets were covered in red dye

That’s what we told them

Beneath our bodies rumbled the ground

as we looked up to the black sky

Our movements stopped when we saw the hound

in silence, I pray

Why didn’t we ran away?

Excerpt from Victims of the Black Cloud (adapted) - 1236

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Hera spent a few hours with Helena in the lab, learning how to pull specific parts of her mana to a spell. She had some trouble trying to find the mana, and it was even more challenging to fuel a spell with that specific mana. Yet, the biggest issue was Helena trying to teach it. Since she was a mage, she never had to worry about manually separating the mana, so all her knowledge was secondhand. Yet by the time the two headed towards the dormitory, Hera was able to grasp the concept of the skill. It was far from being useful in an actual fight, but during the slow waves, Hera could practice that and see the difference in effect.

According to the tests, 10% of Hera's mana had converted to poison, 4% to whatever element her pulse spell was, and 2% to light. With this amount of mana, she could use one poison needle with pure poison mana. And a few pulses. When using the right kind of mana, the spells seemed to be strengthened. She wasn't sure what the poison needle would do since she didn't have a target to test it on, but using the 10 points of specific mana for the pulse spell made the range increase by 20%, to 12 meters. If the poison needle would work the same way, the damage it would deal was much higher than when using her regular mana. It should match to when she used the poison mana crystal to fuel her spells.

Another thing that Helena showed Hera were the scales that she had brought. Each of them could increase the power of spells that matched its element, and since the affinity sight spell allowed them to see the element that the scale had, they could actually use it. During her tests, Helena gathered that the scales could increase the power of a spell by 7 to 14%, and they were able to withstand around 500 to 1000 mana passing through them. The crystal one still required more testing. Helena managed to use a spell with close to double its strength, but the next few attempts gave underwhelming results, even weakening the spell's power.

Helena ended up sharing the room with Hera, Blue, and the other women of their team. They had a spare bed, and no one wanted to be alone in a group with strangers.

During the night, Cass explained how was the situation with the other teams. Most were doing fine. The team that was in the northwest entrance was the only one who had some trouble. Most of its members were relatively new explorers. They were around for just half a year and were all part of the same party before the rampage. During the assault, one of the pangolins managed to hit a man's torso with its spiked tail. He was the one that was in the infirmary all bandaged up.

Because of that, they would change the teams a bit. Besides teams A through H, they had two backup units, with fewer people than the rest who would keep patrolling the areas and helping any team with some issues. Now they would have only a single group as backup, but the unit would have more members. They were also responsible for taking care of any stragglers that attempted to break the walls instead of going through the entrances. Team H1 wouldn't see any changes. They were able to hold back the waves without relying on anyone else.

"How many people are fighting here? In this room, I mean," Hera asked.

"Well, we have around 450 that will fight, plus the 50 people manning the guild. My guess is close to double that in Brinefront, so maybe, 2 000 to 2 500. The outposts near dungeons will have a much easier time defending. The rampage is attracted by big settlements. The one near the frog valley should have maybe 250 people, if that, and it will be more than enough. There is one to the west that is more of a campground with a single store. That one will need like 100 people at most," Cass explained.

"Oh, so there are people from the MAZE there?" Blue asked.

"That too, but some people just want to live close to home. I know a guy that is staying there because he fell in love with a civilian. It's actually a cute story how they..." the women kept talking during a large part of the night. The set up made Hera feel like she was traveling with her friends from the school, and the mood felt just like it. No one seemed to be very worried about the situation, and that gave her some comfort, even if she had to stay alert so nothing would go wrong.

In the morning, while they were eating breakfast. One of the clerks sent the list of items they had gotten during the defense. There were several materials, including a hefty price of 100 gold for the turtle jawbone. But none of them had any unique properties. Still, for the first day, they got 12 000 gold to split between the team. Cass said that all the earnings would be divided equally, and if someone wanted a material, they could pay the same price that the guild was giving them. No one was interested in the materials, so they all got 800 gold just for the first day. According to Thomas, if this lasted for another week, they would easily get more from the loot than from the rewards.

Before leaving, Helena gave Hera, Blue, and Alex a pangolins scale for their elements. Lightning for Blue, Wind for Alex, and Poison for Hera. She explained how to use the scales and asked them to use it only when needed since there was a limit on how much they could do before being burned out. Before thanking Helena, Hera said that maybe someone had found some scales as a drop. If so, they could buy and have more materials for the research.

The second day of fighting was close to a repeat of the first one. The monsters were somewhat stronger, but only by the last wave did they feel like regular monsters from the room. They fought two of the snapping turtles this time, but neither of them was able to even reach the vanguard. The entire shift felt much less taxing than the previous one. Yet, by the end of the day, Hera managed to rank up one of her skills.

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Improved Stamina (Rank 2):

Increases the stamina of the user as well as its regeneration. The effect moderately increases when the user is less active or more relaxed. The effect has a minor increase when standing still.

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"Oh, is that why Tom stays still when there is no monster around?" Hera said to herself.

"Have you called upon me, noble explorer?" Tom walked closer to her while they headed back to the guild.

"Yeah. My Improved Stamina increased rank. I just saw that if I stand still, I can recover a bit."

"Ah, yes. The skill that increases our fighting spirit. You are correct. The more it grows, the easier it gets for you to rest. Yet, we carry a heavy burden on our shoulders. For all our skills, make us even more tired as we grow. If not for the recovery granted by it, I would fail to use my gallant moves more than a few times," Tom explained.

"I see. When our other skills get stronger, they also become more taxing to use. Good to know, thanks. I had no idea that the other skills would become even more tiring," Hera smiled as they walked through the empty streets.

If that wasn't enough to give an eerie feeling to the town, the noise that came from the teams made it seem like they were hiding in the middle of a war. The roar of beasts was constant even as they got closer to the guild. Looking around, as Hera could see the light and sparks created by large spells, she couldn't help but worry. Were they really safe in here? Could a black cloud appear? Or a wendigo?

She shrugged those thoughts away and focused on her current plans. She wanted a shower again and to eat something other than stew, maybe some chocolate. Hera grabbed her number for the shower. Today she was at 65, so it would take even longer for her turn. Dropping by the infirmary, she saw another five people in rough states. No one was as bad as the man from the first day, but they still seemed to be out of the fight. Hera had a large cut on the back of her hand. Because of that, they placed a couple of adhesive stitches, and she had a twenty-minute session with a healer just to be sure the pain wouldn't be a problem during the next day. The adhesive helped keep the wound closed while the healer triggered an accelerated recovery. By the end of it, Hera only felt a slight discomfort in some movements, but holding her handaxe wasn't among them.

Being all patched up, Hera went for the room they were using, but someone else had already taken their beds. Since there weren't enough rooms for everyone, it was on a first-come, first-served basis. Worst-case scenario, they could head to one of the gyms and use the tents in there. Luckily, Cass predicted that they might have some trouble and sent Martel, who usually worked as a scout, and Tisha, the archer, ahead.

Thanks to that, the group was still able to get a single room for the team, although Helena wouldn't be able to join them by the number of beds. That wasn't much of an issue since she had a shared bedroom with the people working in the guild to maintain everything working. The team ate and discussed some strategies for the next day. After that, everyone started to do some maintenance on their equipment. Hera went to do so in Helena's lab. That way, they could keep working together on the research. Even if Hera was more or less a guinea pig, it was still worth it. She could feel her control of magic getting better, and if by the end, she found out a new skill. It was all the better.

"Lena, how do you make a mana reinforcement with an element?" Hera asked as she was sharpening her handaxe.

"There are two ways, one simple, one complicated. The simple one is to pull the type of mana you want for the spell. Of course, that only works if part of your mana is from an element. The complicated one is to finish the spell and then change all the mana inside it to the element you want," Helena replied without looking away from the rocks. She would place each of them atop a solution and wait for the reaction before making notes on her tablet.

"Ok... I don't think I have enough elemental mana to make the spell for too long, so how do I change the mana inside it?"

Helena stopped moving and looked at Hera, "Sorry, I really don't know."

"Oh, the perks of being a mage. Not even having to worry about such mundane things," Hera made an overly dramatic gesture, teasing Helena.

"Hey! It's not like that, you know. I know how I do it. There is a long equation to change one type of mana into another. I just don't know how you should do it."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forget that I'm the weird one that sees magic as a result and not a bunch of numbers," Hera scoffed.

"Yeah, if you used math, I could teach you so much. But now I have to keep asking around for ideas on how to help you, and honestly, most of the time, they don't make a lick of sense," Helena got up and walked to the side, where she had a bottle of water.

"Wait, is that why you told me to figure things out myself with the mana reinforcement?" Hera asked.

"Yeah, I have no idea what the tips other mages gave me meant. So I took the most basic advice and passed along. What the hell does 'wrap the weapon in a cozy mana blanket' means?" Helena scoffed.

"I agree. It's more like placing the weapon inside a mana cast," Hera said.

"See, right there. If I heard someone talking like that, I would have them committed," Helena said.

The two kept working while Hera kept trying to make her Mana reinforcement have poison mana. When it became late, they headed out going to their bedrooms, and soon the time for Hera's third shift had arrived.