After his latest near-death experience, it took some time for James to get back into the swing of things.

The crabs crowding the edge of his ward made for a good warm up.

As usual, the crabs were extremely aggressive, but their claws were no match for James' boots and greaves. And once latched on, they were easy to strike even without [Rapid Blow]. James smashed roughly a dozen crabs and took his time dismantling the carcasses, collecting the water magic crystals and the meat, and then putting the meat to smoking to build up his monster meat reserves again.

Once the crabs were cleared out, at least for the moment, James was able to start work on the most disgusting chore he'd had to take on in his entire life: shoveling the rotting bird monster carcasses outside his ward.

Thankfully, he didn't have to go far. Merely shoveling the rotting flesh and feathers and bones out past the edge of his ward let crab monsters get at it, consuming it or dragging it away elsewhere to eat more peacefully. After a day of this, which again left him sore in that way that odd physical labor does when it strains seldom-used muscles, the pile was gone and the stench had started to dissipate.

Disappointingly, the crabs did not leave the wind magic crystals of the dead bird monsters behind when they ate. They must have consumed them.

But wind magic crystals were not James' goal at the moment.

No, he was after fire magic crystals.

Sadly, he only knew one source: the burning mushrooms of the Pangolin chamber in the upper floor.

James could feel it in himself: the reluctance. To get there, he would have to go to the entrance to the passage that led to the stairs, a place of two separate bad experiences – first, the first time the lake had shot a spear of water at him, nearly killing him but for his [Reflect] enchanted shield that had been barely strong enough to protect him, and second, his less than epic battle against the spider monster that had stalked him down the stairs.

And then the Pangolin chamber itself: the shock of the door closing behind him, the fear that someone else was in the caves with him, the realization that he was in a Dungeon, and the worry about traps.

It was quite a lot of negative associations.

And on the positive side of things? Less than two dozen burning mushrooms if he was lucky, each of which likely contained one small fire magic crystal barely enough for two heating strips.

But it was the best option. And why? As James had been lying about for a month, recovering from frostbite, he had realized that off in the hazy distance, directly across from the lake from the passage up to the upper floor, that was where the snowy passage was. He could try exploring the other side of the lake, but it was unlikely that there was another passage further into the Dungeon on that side. If he was extremely lucky, there might be some monster that contained fire magic crystals, but – and this was a real sign of the Smith's growing maturity – if a monster contained fire magic crystals, it probably used fire to attack, or was in some way fire-aligned, and James lacked a way to defend against fire.

No, facing his fears and collecting a meager amount of fire magic crystals with known risks was far better than a gamble on finding another source of fire magic crystals with entirely unknown risks.

And so James found himself, fully armored, clutching his Earth War Hammer, facing the warding stakes surrounding the passage to the upper floor.

They were entirely empty of magic power, and the ward had faded.

It only stood to reason, after nearly two months without being recharged.

On alert, James scanned around. No spider monsters that he could see. So he refilled the warding stake closest to him with magic power and re-established the ward. Cautiously, he stepped up to the entrance to the passage. Having grown used to the relatively bright light of this floor, the dim gloom of the passage looked like impenetrable darkness.

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The Enchanter considered returning to camp to enchant something with [Glow], but decided against it. Better to let his eyes re-adjust to the darkness.

He climbed up the steps carefully, ensuring his footing and scanning continuously around for spider monsters. The only good thing he could think of was that they were so awfully large that they were hard to miss if he was actively looking for them. Certainly as long as he kept his eyes peeled in the passage and on the stairs, they couldn't sneak up on him like one had last time.

It took roughly two hours of slow progress and frequent breaks to let his eyes adjust for James to make it back to the Pangolin chamber. It was the same as before, eerily so. Glowshrooms and burning mushrooms dotted the walls, and the path the Pangolin monster had rolled across the floor was still there.

But James didn't dwell on it. He was glad that, as far as he could tell, another Pangolin monster hadn't appeared, and that there didn't seem to be any spider monsters around. At least, for now.

He made his way to the walls and started collecting all the glowshrooms and fire mushrooms he could reach, stopping every dozen seconds or so to scan around for spider monsters. There were still glowshrooms higher up on the walls than he could reach, in case they might spread spores and grow back, but James was concerned that after all this time, the fire mushroom he had harvested months ago hadn't grown back. There was just a noticeable gap in the pattern of fire mushrooms that had lit the room like torches in sconces.

He still left one, just in case. In total, he harvested sixteen fire mushrooms, well over a hundred glowshrooms, and left one more fire mushroom near the center of the room.

And he didn't encounter any spider monsters.

Having achieved his goal, James quickly left the room and retreated back down the stairs. This time, there was no hesitation. The danger was clearly behind him, and safety was clearly in front of him. With only infrequent pauses to scan the passage behind him for spider monsters, he made it to the bottom of the stairs and back out into the warded area on the Dungeon's second floor.

The lake loomed in the distance, with bird monsters like specks flying above it, but James simply raised his shield in that direction and headed back to his camp.

It was time to forge and enchant.

The goal was to produce a set of heating strips that he could wear under his armor to provide heat while in the snowy passage. Thankfully, the metal strips he was envisioning were thin, so he could probably wear them under the armor without problem.

No, the problem would be the mole monster hide underlayer he wanted to use as insulation. Both from the cold, and from the heating strips themselves. He didn't want to make a mistake with his [Mana Manipulation] and instantly burn himself while wearing the heating strips. Especially since, under his armor, he wouldn't be able to remove them, and the heat didn't instantly dissipate once he stopped using the enchantment.

There was another problem: James didn't have that much hide. He had some smoked hide in his magic bag, but he wasn't sure it would be enough for a full body suit of insulation.

And in fact, it wasn't. After some experimentation, James found that he could hammer the hide flatter, expanding the surface area slightly, but he still only had enough for a patchwork that left significant gaps all over his body.

In the end, the Smith designed his heating system in this way: the heating strips would be attached to the inside of his armor pieces, underneath a patch of thicker cushioning which would insulate his body both from the cold and from the heat of his strips. This would primarily heat up his armor, which, being forged of Green Iron Armor, would raise in temperature easily. The increased temperature of his armor would then warm the air in the gaps, which would also be patched with a layer of mole monster hide to block some of the biting cold wind.

Special attention was paid to his bracers, mittens, extended moccasins, and boots. He did not want to experience frostbite like that ever again. Sadly he was still unable to forge proper gauntlets, so instead he created small heating strips, more like squares, and riveted them to the outer portion of each mitten. Three long strips were riveted to the extended moccasins, all the way down to the toes, in addition to the strips inserted into the boots themselves. Given that they were almost certainly going to be soaked in melted snow, it was better to have more heating capacity than he thought he might need.

Just in case.

Elsewhere, heating filaments were evenly spaced out. In total, James crafted 24 heating strips of various sizes using twelve of his collected fire magic crystals, leaving him with four remaining in his magic bag. This took another week of forging, etching, and enchanting, during which James also hunted crab and bird monsters to replenish his stocks of smoked monster meat.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Basic Elemental Enchanting] has reached level 4.

After a week, the system was complete, and he tried it on. It was stiff, more restrictive than James was used to due to the extra layer of mole monster leather underneath his armor, but he was able to muscle through it and keep most of his range of motion.

It was also already warmer and stuffier than his armor alone had been. Almost immediately he started sweating, but he could put up with that as well. His [Heat Resistance] skill helped.

No, the main trouble was with the heating strips themselves.

Each heating strip had its own [Heated Blade] enchantment, in close enough proximity to James' body that he could activate them using [Enchantment Activation].

But his control was entirely lacking. There were simply too many different enchantments to activate at once. At best, he found he could activate eight enchantments at once. And that number included his war hammer and shield. If he wanted to use all the heating strips and his shield and his war hammer, he needed to be able to activate twenty-six different enchantments at once.

It gave him a splitting headache to try. And he still only managed eight activations at once.

The other problem was his [Mana Manipulation]. If he activated eight enchantments at once, they all activated at full force. If he wanted to control the heating strips' output and how much power he was channeling to [Reflect] and time a [Rapid Blow] correctly, he could only control four enchantments at once.

And that wasn't the only problem.

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