Chapter 163: Sandman

After running drills in the training grounds, Sol left the palace and headed towards the dungeon. Taking the teleport sigil down to the 20th floor, he saw Amber practicing as usual. Sand moved like water, swirling around in a giant whirlpool until she noticed his presence and made the sand scatter.

"Hey, Amber," Sol said as he neared. "Any progress with the palace?"

In the few times he managed to finish all his training and reading material ahead of schedule, he would visit Amber to spar or talk, though he did most of the talking. Last week, he mentioned if it was possible for her to sneak into the castle and look for records and information regarding his parents' whereabouts.

'I doubt it would be easy to infiltrate the palace, but it's worth a shot. If not, then I just have to continue with the knight stuff.'

Amber pulled out a map from her spatial ring. It was incomplete, mostly around the center, but a few details gave him an idea of what it was.

"Is this a map of the palace? Does that mean you got in?"

Amber shook her head. "Outside, view from wall. [Invisibility] doesn't work."

"It gets canceled?"

She nodded.

"My bad, I should have tried using [Invisibility] myself before asking you to sneak in. It could be the same thing that prevents the usage of spells in the palace or something else. Forget about it then, I'll just keep working on my own angle. Before I go, do you wanna spa—"

"No." Amber cut him off. "Want to help. Not just train."

Sol crossed his arms in front of him, not knowing what she could assist him with. Sneaking into the palace was clearly not going to work if she couldn't maintain her [Invisibility].

"Hmm… Do you think this city has a black market?"

While he knew of the existence of black markets, it was recently reminded to him by his reading material. One of the books regarded the habits and locations of illegal merchants and their markets. It was one of the more interesting books he read, so it remained at the forefront of his mind.

"It does." She confirmed.

"How do you know? Have you gone there?"

She shook her head. "Cain said it."

"Cain, huh…"

The boss of the gang that kidnapped him and brainwashed Amber, Cain had created many connections throughout the years of managing his illegal business, including the black market of Crestel City. If there was a black market in this city, then he knew what she could do.

"Can you go there and get information about the palace? I'm sure some guard or maid has been leaking information for some extra gold. Also, see if you can find information on the Black Tongue—that's what my father used to go by."

"Okay."

Sol was about to warn her of the dangers, but remembering who he was talking to, he was confident she could take care of herself.

'If anything, they are the ones in danger.'

After giving a small prayer to whoever would be unfortunate enough to bother her, the two had a short sparring session. It only lasted for half an hour, and he gained no skill levels in the process, but it was a nice way to let off some steam. Sol was either cooped up reading or holding back during training, so at least here he could try out whatever he wanted.

The two exchanged blows with their weapons, and eventually, it evolved into an exchange of sand and stone. He didn't plan to only use [Terra Manipulation] as he was no longer in a rush to improve it and summoned two hands from the talent skill [Create Magic Hands]. He gave them each a weapon, and they promptly flew towards Amber and executed [Cross Slash] and [Debilitating Strike].

The hands' attacks were slow in her eyes. With her two daggers, she was able to deflect them away without any trouble.

'Let's increase the difficulty!' Sol thought to himself as he called upon more hands.

Two more hands appeared, and after tossing them more weapons, they joined the fray. Each hand had a different weapon as they executed skills weaved into their normal attacks. Amber dodged and countered the attacks gracefully, unperturbed by the increased enemies. The four hands weren't fast enough nor strong enough to do much besides keeping her busy.

'Two more then!'

Two more hands appeared, and with six hands attacking from all sides, she was starting to get overwhelmed. She was forced to turn her body into sand, making her mostly immune to the physical attacks, but they still scattered her sand body whenever they landed. In response, she gathered sand and used a newly obtained skill to even the odds.

Small mounds of sand were created as they wobbled and rose, looking similar to a humanoid figure. The sand men then formed scimitars out of sand and attacked the hands. There were four sand men total as they clashed with the floating hands. Their blades were as solid as steel, and the sound produced from their clash rang loud in the dungeon.

As the sand men and hands fought, Sol and Amber weren't idle. They had been continuously launching attacks with sand and stone creations. Tens of more exchanges happened over the next few minutes until they decided to stop today's spar.

They both could have taken the fight further, but Sol didn't have that much time as he had to stop by one more place before heading back to the palace.

"Let's stop here."

Sol's hands returned to him as Amber's sand men lined up idly next to her. Taking a look at the sand men next to her, he commented.

"Two more than last time, and they are stronger too. What level is [Sand Soldiers] now?"

"Eight."

Sol was in awe. "Wasn't it level two last time? Have you been focusing on it?"

Amber nodded. She found it useful compared to her normal [Sand Manipulation] as they had some level of autonomy. Besides the base cost of creating them, they functioned very similarly to Sol's magic hands, which was the original source of inspiration for her.

"That's amazing! I would like to stay and help you practice with it, but I got one more thing I gotta do today. Take care and let me know if you find anything in the black market."