Elven Mask Maker

Following the map he was given by the gun store owner, Noah and Alice spent another eleven days travelling through the Deadly Woods, the forest they were currently in.

The way to RoyalCloud was still Far. Noah and Alice had been farming D Class dungeons for days now. The drops weren't any better and could only be used for selling. The drops were mostly F Class items, just in more abundance of them. The new bags they had changed to were large size sacks that were used to store all of the items into their inventory.

During the night Noah would go to the dungeons he was told would drop the materials for the D Class gun he wanted to craft. He still hadn't gotten the design as the dungeon that dropped it was further out, but he had been collecting materials.

Till now he had gone through 4 of the 10 dungeons. He had cleared all of them at least twice, to make sure he got enough of the material he wanted.

Alice had gotten used to using Dual Wielding. Her damage had gone through the roof during the last few days after getting the new dagger. She had brought all her skills to a max level of five except for two. Assassination was harder to level and had only reached level 2, its cooldown was decreased by a minute. Her Dagger Mastery Skill had been also been stuck on level 5 for while.

"Why does the teleportation hall cost so much? Isn't it unfair to have people appear in cities with a better starting point?" Alice was already sick of travelling but couldn't go back now that she was halfway there.

"We shouldn't complain, we had the Skill Creation Zone close to our town. I think that's a lot more valuable than anything we could have gotten in the city." Noah said while looking at his Explorer Map.

Alice thought about it and had to agree. They had asked about the Skill Creation zone to the system and found out it was only one of its kind. They had lucked out in being able to find it. The skills they had gotten were special compared to others as they were completely customised to them, easily becoming the most used skills in their arsenal.

They finally found the hut in the forest. It was built out of wooden planks and was a small cabin surrounded by towering trees. Two windows on the side of the door let out some light from the inside.

Noah walked first, he saw a small sign saying 'Elven Mask Crafter', it was the place he was looking for. He knocked on the door then entered. A small shop with a warm cosy wooden interior. Masks hung on the walls till the ceiling. Each with its own facial expression and design. A blond old man with pointed ears and glasses sat on a chair behind a desk hammering on a piece of wood.

"Customers? Someone actually came? So how much gold do you have? You'll need at least one gold to afford one of my masks." The Elf stopped what he was doing and looked at Noah and Alice.

"More than enough," Noah said while looking at the masks. He currently had more than 20 gold.

They looked around for suitable masks. The masks in the shop were all F Class equipment and gave various attributes but all of them had one thing in common and that was a passive skill called Hide Aura. Design-wise, some were painted in only one colour while some had patterns. The expressions on the masks went from sobbing to laughing. There were even large cultural masks, the type you'd see on earth in tropical societies.

Alice picked up a mask and saw the passive skill it gave, "Noah, isn't this skill perfect for me?"

For Alice being able to hide her aura, with her Stealth skill and Silent trait. It would different from completely disappearing off the planet when using it against monsters.

Aura was a general term for the 'energy' a person emitted. It was mainly affected by your level, where higher levels had stronger auras and so gave off a more intimidating presence. Aura helped in deterring weak monsters away as well and attracting strong ones. By hiding the Aura they would be able to walk around without attracting monster attention. This was how horses were not attacked by monsters even if they were left alone in the forest, as they didn't have any aura.

Alice had been learning to understand and detect it for the last few days but her sense attribute wasn't high enough. It needed a Sense attribute higher than 20 and an understanding of your opponent built on experience. She had already fought many strong monsters and could roughly guess the strength but she needed a higher sense attribute to clearly see their aura.

Noah had always been able to clearly detect it because of his talents. He was even able to detect it on earth because of all the training he had gone through since he was young.

"It is, but this skill seems too good for an F Class item," Noah said while looking at the Elven Crafter.

"I'm a Master Crafter, even my failures are D Class items, I brought the Class down on purpose so you humans can afford it." The Elf responded.

Alice looked around and picked up a silver-painted deer mask, "How about this one?"

[Silver Deer Mask] (F Class)

Agility +10, Sense +10

Passive Skill: [Hide Aura] Conceals the aura a person emits out, stopping others from knowing your level.

The mask covered the upper part of the face till the top of the forehead. It had two small deer antlers that seemed to be carved out of silver crystal. The uniform silver gave the wooden mask a metallic glow.

Alice wore the mask, her sense attribute had reached the requirement, it was like putting on glasses the auras she could barely sense became clear. She saw Noah's aura. It gave off a slight pressure but was unusually soft and even refreshing, then looking at the elf and couldn't see his aura. She took off the mask and gave it to Noah to see.

She finally understood why Noah was pushing for her to understand it. She would be able to judge enemies a lot better now, knowing when to retreat and when to attack. It reminded her of the time the Black Werewolf had buffed itself twice. If she was able to do this then, she would have been able to react faster and helped Noah in escaping instead of endangering his life.

"Is the attribute of each mask design fixed or can they be changed?" Noah asked after seeing the mask. He liked the design as well and wanted a similar mask to Alice. Sadly, Agility wasn't what he was focusing on after he got the Levitation Staff. Also, Death's Dance had levelled up to level two increasing the amount of agility it gave, which made increasing the agility attribute less important. He wanted an increase in his mana.

"It varies a little sometimes, but normally it's the same. That mask is for increasing agility and sense do you want it?"

"Which masks increase mana?" Noah asked.

The aged elven man thought and said, "Since I normally don't use crystals most of my masks don't have the mana attribute. But that silver mask you are holding uses a special crystal wood to be made, that has mana veins in it, It can increase mana but it'll be a lot more expensive."

"Have you decided?" Noah looked at Alice.

"I'll go with the Silver Deer Mask with the agility and sense attribute increase." Alice gave the other masks a look she liked the Silver Deer Mask the best.

Noah told the Elven crafter what he wanted. The crafter nodded, "Come here, let me see your faces so I can get the right shape."

He nodded then put two pieces of greyish wood and started carving. After getting the general shape of the face he started carving the antlers near the top. In twenty minutes he finished both masks and placed them before Alice and Noah.

Alice's mask was similar to the one she had picked. It was completely silver, with two small antlers on each side near the top. While Noah's, also completely silver had long branching antlers. The mask didn't have any straps it was made to fit perfectly to the size of their faces. It would stick on as if becoming part of your face.

Alice wore her mask, it covered the top of her face, her jewel-like eyes peeking out from the shiny silver, "How do I look?"

"Beautiful." Noah was pleasantly surprised by the Hide Aura passive. It had hidden's Alice's aura completely making it hard for even him to sense her with his normal senses. Alice would now be able to move completely undetected through all D Class dungeons.

He then wore his mask as well. His mask had a Mana +10 instead of agility with the same passive skill. He was happy that he finally didn't have to wear that bamboo hat anymore. He looked dashing as his blueish silver eyes were complemented by the mask.

The two paid 7 gold for the masks and left.