Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Learning through pain

For example using this method I discovered that I tended to leave my back exposed quite often and as a result had been slowly correcting that flaw through trial and error. For anyone else this method of patching flaws would be suicidal as the injuries would start adding up until they'd drop from blood loss. In my case however I sealed the shallow wounds almost before they had a chance to bleed and adjusted my movements and focus to correct the discovered flaw. Despite this however I wasn't feeling challenged at all fighting these level two monsters.

It was all because of my flames, no matter how much pressure these level two monsters put on me with their numbers I knew that if it ever became too much I had something I could use to trivialize the fight. It would be oh so easy to just send the flames out and sit back while they did all the work because of their nature. I knew however that this was a flaw in and of itself as if I relied on my flames to handle all my issues what would happen when I couldn't for whatever reason?-

The answer was simple and clear as day, I'd die. If I relied on my flames to handle all my enemies then I'd just be leaving myself vulnerable in the case they didn't work. Understanding this I relegated my flames to a last resort or something I used when I didn't want to waste time fighting something or someone. This caused me no small amount of suffering but that was where the falna and cursed energy excelled the most so my gains outweighed the cost. Perhaps my stats weren't growing rapidly but my skill in combat was improving by leaps and bounds.-

I had even started being able to react to the way the monsters moved to attack and counter before they finished or even interrupt them sometimes. There were patterns in how they moved and after fully immersing myself in the battles I started to recognize these patterns and react preemptively. It was pretty clear to me however that no level two should attempt to learn this trick of mine. The speed between the action of the monster , your brain recognizing what's happening and you moving to react to that recognition was so tight that it created an ungodly amount of fucking strain on me.-

It was an advanced concept that probably only became really viable at higher levels, maybe four or beyond. Despite figuring this out I still tried to master this new way of fighting because I also knew that the falna tended to reward effort with the harder something was the better the reward for putting in the effort. So while this way of fighting was more suited for a higher level adventurer it was still possible to pull off at my level in exchange for a sharp increase in difficulty.-

"Are you sure that you need to go so far?" Hestia asked worriedly when I came home once again covered in my own blood with more new scars adorning my skin.

"Believe me I wish I didn't but if I am to grow the fastest only by going to such lengths is it possible." I said feeling mentally drained.

"And what about these scars? Why do you insist on keeping them when all they do is remind you of pain?" She asked unhappily while tracing my newest scars with her finger tip.

"I'll remove them when I remove the flaw in my combat style that created them in the first place. Think of them like progress markers rather than reminders of pain. Each one I take away means I come just that little bit closer to my goal. And when the day eventually comes that my skin holds no scars you'll know all this pain and effort was worth it." I said with a smile as I imagined that future.

"I worry you know? That you'll go too far and never come back. That one day you'll lose something you can't just fix with that power of yours." she said softly and I just pat her on the top of the head.

"I'm harder to kill than a cockroach so don't you worry your pretty little head about it. I might come home a little worse for wear but make no mistake I will ALWAYS come home." I said confidently.

After that short but heartfelt chat it was time to work on my commission that was taking a while due to how energy intensive it was. I had already fused all the crystal together and removed all the impurity from it leaving it as pure shiny crystal. I activated my technique and began to shape this mass of crystal into a very vague lioness body if the lioness was laying down.-

The neck and chest area however was left raw and unformed since those were going to be turned into the woman's torso. Despite this however I was burning through cursed energy at an alarming rate simply due to the sheer size of the material and how much it was resisting transformation. Yes my technique could be resisted though if I paid enough energy I could overcome that resistance. At least that was the case for nonalive things like metals and crystals such as this.-

Transforming a living material like a monsters anatomy cost an excessive amount of cursed energy as their resistance was way more intense and in level two monsters I even risked mind zero from the sheer amount of resistance I felt. Thanks to this I was able to understand or at least theorize how my technique would improve as I grew stronger. Right now my techniques was barely strong enough to work on dead level four materials or alive level two materials and by growing stronger this limit would also increase.-

In theory my technique might even be able to overcome the dungeons resistance by the time I hit level seven or eight. Anyway this dungeon crystal was a dead material at around level two or three judging from the resistance I felt from it which meant I spent a very large amount of energy just shaping the general form of the crystal statue. Ptah was already aware that this was not a project that could be done in a short amount of time and was fine waiting a month or so for me to finish it.-

I had already decided that I wouldn't update my falna again until I finished this statue or something happened that forced me to need a power up for some reason. The reason for this was simply that only at that point would I see any decent growth in my stats. There was just something about my numbers jumping forward that was highly satisfying.