Six days remained until the next calamity wave arrived.
Naturally, he could not waste this precious time. Aside from visiting the Weapon Shop to urge Elhart to hurry with the shields, he spent the rest of his time taking Bruce and Raphtalia into the forest to the southwest to hunt magic beasts.
Thanks to his conversations with the three heroes who had "extensive" gaming experience, he had gained a rough understanding of the magic beasts found at the nearby "leveling spots." He deliberately avoided habitats of beasts he had already added to his bestiary and headed into unexplored areas to hunt new ones, expanding the number of shields unlocked in the Book of Weapons.
His and Bruce's levels were already quite high, and each new level now required an enormous amount of experience. Hunting only the low-level beasts in the forest, mostly in their twenties and thirties, meant leveling up took a long time. Improving their strength through levels alone was slow, and the natural stat increases from gaining just one or two levels were hardly significant. The greatest gains still came from developing a hero's Holy Weapon.
Chuan Wenwu could keep improving his strength by developing the Shield of the Hero, but Bruce could not. As leveling grew progressively slower, honing his combat techniques became his only remaining way to get stronger. Chuan Wenwu had him use flame enchantment magic more often in battle to kill enemies and improve his proficiency-yes, under Chuan Wenwu and Raphtalia's urging, Bruce had finally learned his first spell: "Flame Enchantment," a form of Status Magic that wreathed a weapon in blazing flames. It worked wonders with Bruce's greatsword.
Bruce was not yet proficient, however, and needed constant practice to truly master it.
As for Raphtalia, whose level was the lowest in the party,