Book 1: Chapter 76: The Trick to Unsealing and Jade Stars
"Hmm..." Lone was currently busy gazing at his status while lying down on his and Soph's bed in their room at The Adventurer's Guild.
Status Name:Lone ImmortusSex:Male Age:24Level:139 [40] Species:FoxkinRank:E Race:Golden Foxkin HP:32,350/32,350 [+2,400]SP:37,620/37,620 [+2,800] MP:38,460/38,460 Basic Stats Strength:2,413 [+210]Vigour:3,235 [+240] Dexterity:2,082 [+300]Agility:2,399 [+355] Vitality:3,762 [+280]Luck:121 [+5] Secret Stats Charm:80 [+3]Charisma:49 Magic Power:3,846
"He really didn't give me many stats but a fuckton of levels... Was he also an E-ranker or what? He did die pretty quickly and didn't put up much of a fight when I was strangling him with the chains... Do people give more levels as opposed to monsters on a 1-1 scale, or did he have shit stats for his rank?" Lone really didn't have a clue how his Growth Accelerator took levels and stats from others.
Was Gregory Milatod a very powerful man caught off-guard or was he just your above average man no stronger than your top-class labourers or low-class adventurers?
Soph yawned adorably as she ambled out of the room's private bathroom and back into bed. She crawled under the covers and snuggled up to Lone. "What're you doing?"
"Huh? Uh, just going over my level-ups. I had to kill a guy to escape that noble's mansion..." Lone explained.
"Ah, okay," Soph lazily replied as a happy smile wormed its way onto her face. She was overjoyed that Lone was okay, so even though she had spent most of the day crying like a hot mess in Sophie's mind, she was currently happier than she had even been in recent days.
Lone dismissed his status and got under the covers with Soph. He wrapped a few tails around her and asked, "So, get another unique skill unsealed?"
The girl shook her head. "Nope. S-Sorry... I want to be more useful but nothing changed after we ranked up..."
Lone frowned, though not at Soph. "I think I've figured out how your powers work. Well, how they get unsealed at least."
Soph was surprised. She got up and leaned over Lone's chest. Their faces were only inches apart as she asked, "Really?! What power will I get next? Will I... Will I get a useful one?"
Lone smiled and kissed the girl's nose. "All of your powers are useful even if you don't think they are."
He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling as he detailed his theory on her powers. "When we first came here you already had your Mana Sensing and your Teleportation. As soon as I - and by proxy, you - ranked up from I-rank to H-rank, you unlocked Body Manipulation. Correct me if I'm wrong."
Soph scrunched up her face then slowly nodded. "That sounds right..."
"Okay, then at G-rank you got fuckin' diddly-squat," Lone said.
"Potty mouth..." Soph muttered in response with flushed cheeks.
Lone just chuckled faintly at that. "Then at F-rank you got minor Time Control, and finally, now at E-rank, again, you got fuck all. Do you see a pattern here? 'Cause I do."
Soph ignored his foul language as she knitted her brow in concentration. She thought long and hard but eventually gave up with a sorry expression. "Um, no. S-Sorry... I'm not smart like you are."
Lone leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Back where I'm from people's intelligence is tested by how well they can determine patterns, but honestly that's dumb. That's only one facet to one's intelligence. You're plenty smart, Soph. Don't sell yourself short."
Soph crawled up Lone a bit more and rested her head on his shoulder. "T-Thanks." Long were the days that she apologised for every little thing. Now she would occasionally thank Lone instead of saying sorry to him at any and all available opportunities.
"You're welcome," Lone answered with a grin. "Anyway, I think your unique skills work like this: First, you were given two powers as a freebie when we were brought here, after that you've gained one every second rank. You started with two at I-rank, got one at H-rank, got another at F-rank, so, it stands to reason that you'll unlock another at D-rank, B-rank, S-rank, so on and so forth until you get the last one upon reaching Divinity - the rank the Grand Guildmaster is at."
Soph wore a confused expression. "Why? You got all of your skills immediately and still have three more chances to make new unique skills... Why do I have to wait for you to rank up? I, uh, I'm not mad at you... Just, why did the gods make it like this?"
Lone shook his head. "I have no idea, Soph. I really don't, but all we can do is try to rank me up as fast as possible so you can get your more evidently useful skills sooner rather than later. Like Immortality or Negative Immunity."
Soph weakly nodded. "Mmm..."
"Ah, Soph, could you do me a favour tomorrow?" Lone asked in a low and slightly dismissive tone, which spoke of how trivial this 'favour' was to him.
"What?" Soph asked curiously.
"I know Gilbert's just looking out for us, and I agree with him keeping us locked up in here until the tournament, but I've just about run out of books," Lone admitted with a wry smile. "Do you mind helping me by teleporting me out of the guild tomorrow? I just want to go to the library for a few hours."
Soph's brows were knitted in worry. "I-Is that okay? W-What if you get kidnapped again?... I don't want to lose you..."
Lone chuckled softly. "Silly girl. I'll wear a disguise. I have the Acting and Persuasion skills, remember? I'll be fine. I just need you to help me out then teleport me back in when you detect my mana again."
'No... I don't want to...' She smiled faintly. "Okay. J-Just don't get lost or fight anyone... A-Also, what do I do if Gilbert comes and asks for you?"
Lone puckered his lips in thought. "Just tell him I'm busy and to give me an hour or two. He's busy though, so I doubt he has the time to check up on us. At least not until the evening and I'll be home by then."
Soph's aura changed before she asked, "And what will you do, Lone, if the man asks you if you have left the guild? He is a walking lie detector, as you like to call him."
"Nice to see you too, Sophie," Lone replied with a grin before kissing her. "Why would he ask me that? He isn't a paranoid goat, just an old one. If he gets no reports about me then he has no reason to ask. Even if he does, I never left, you - or Soph - teleported me out. The truth is easy to manipulate so long as you believe what you're saying."
"... Should you make Soph cry like that again, whether through your own intention or not, we will punch you hard enough to dislocate your jaw, regardless of our feelings for you," Sophie declared menacingly as she lay on top of the foxkin.
Lone beamed a smile from ear-to-ear. "You have feelings for me, huh? I'm glad. I love the both of you too."
"Why you!" Sophie's face was blanketed in a sheet of crimson embarrassment. "You are insufferable."
'I know I made a promise to you, Gilbert, but I'm sorry. I need to get Soph and Sophie their eyes back... I have no idea if I'll have a safe and secluded basement to work in wherever we go after the tournament's over... As soon as she has her vision back, I swear, I won't leave this building,' Lone thought as he continued to tease Sophie.
As promised, Lone had snuck out of the guild with Soph's help the next morning.
Of course, he was nowhere near the library but was instead in the new home that he used for his experiments. He hated lying to Soph, but he still felt that he was without a choice when it came to reconstructing her eyes due to how gruesome and immoral the research of the subject was.
"Damn it, another failure... Just what the fuck am I doing wrong?" Lone asked himself as he stared at the blood-covered head of the dead criminal that lay in front of him.
He sighed deeply and muttered, "I'm running out of bodies here and I'm not exactly going to run around looking for criminals to replenish my stocks... Maybe I should just overtax my MP and imagine completely different eyes? Will that work? I can try at least..."
Lone brought out the next corpse that was still magnificently preserved thanks to the effects of his Dimensional Storage.
As usual, he wiped down the blood that had gushed out of the man's eyes, ears, and nose due to Mental Destruction. "Maybe I should take all of the bodies out and clean 'em all? Half of them were cut up pretty fuckin' badly by Sophie, so that could take up an entire day..."
He kept himself occupied with similar idle thoughts as he got to work. Soon, he was done making the dead man presentable, so he closed his eyes and focused. A few moments later a splitting headache greeted him along with a blue screen.
Item does not exist on Altros, however, there are many like it. 50,000 MP has been consumed to compensate for the difference.
The host has a good understanding of the item. 50,000 base MP cost. 50,000 additional MP has been consumed to compensate for the lack of the host's knowledge.
150,000 MP has been consumed to recreate and restructure the item: [Human [Unknown]'s eyes].
Warning! The host has consumed more MP than they possess. Bracket of extra consumption: 50,000-500,000 MP. MP has been sealed for 100-hours.
Lone immediately blacked out from what - to him - felt like a lightning bolt to the brain. He toppled over and lay there unconscious over his dead test subject.
"Urh... Jesus Christ... Why'd I wake up when my head's pounding so badly?" Lone asked as he stumbled up to his feet.
He almost retched upon smelling the corpse that he had been using as a pillow until now. Lone quickly backed away from the body and slumped down the basement's wall. "I should probably head home... Only God knows how long I've been unconscious for..."
He steadied himself as he got to his feet then reapproached the decaying corpse. "Well, it worked at least..." Lone muttered as he stared at the brand new set of eyes in the man's skull which were nothing like his old ones. "That's good news at least..."
It was tough convincing Sophie that he had only lost track of time while immersed in the books held within the library, but he managed to convince her somehow. Thankfully, she hadn't stormed out of the guild in search of him again. That would have been less than ideal had she stumbled across his 'research lab'.
Since Lone's MP was sealed for a little over four consecutive days and due to the fact that he was in constant pain from his headache, he simply chose to watch Sophie training her swordsmanship or he chose to read books to the best of his ability until his MP was unsealed.
'Back when I had overused my MP it was only in the 0-5,000MP bracket and only came with a 1-hour-long seal... 100-hours felt like a lifetime, plus, I definitely skipped a bracket, right? If it follows a pattern then it stands to reason that using more than 5,001-50,000MP will result in a 10-hour-long seal...' Lone thought as he stretched and clambered out of bed.
'What's the limit? How many brackets are there? What happens if I use too much MP? Do I just, like, die? Maybe nothing happens... Still, thank fuck for Basic Regen. Without that, I doubt Creation Magic would be nearly as useful as it is. Knowing that I can push myself to half a million extra MP when creating something is useful info to have,' he concluded.
Of course, he had advanced his Mental Pain Resistance skill quite a lot during the past 4-days. Lone pulled up the skill one more time to see just how much it had advanced during the harrowing experience.
Passive Skill: Mental Pain Resistance
A skill that helps protect the host's mind.
Reduces the effects suffered from overusing MP by 60% [+30%]. All mental pains will be weakened by 60% [+30%].
Cost:N/A Mastery:Expert Level 3 [+12 levels]
"Tch," Lone turned up his face in disappointment. "Still no new effect? Does it have to be master rank or do resistances just not gain new effects?"
Soph crawled out of their bed with messy hair and closed eyes as she pushed her way through Lone's tails to hug him from behind. "Not sick anymore?"
Lone couldn't help but smile at how adorable she was being. "Not sick anymore."
Soph grinned a bit foolishly. "Yay..." Clearly, she wasn't fully awake yet.
Lone carefully unwrapped her hands from his waist, confusing her a little. He then spun around and picked the girl up, hugging her close to himself. He kissed her on the tip of her nose and asked, "You wanna see again, right? Like, actually see, not just with Mana Sensing."
Her face was instantly flushed red at Lone's physical flirting but she still took his question seriously. "Y-Yeah... I... I want to see what you look like..."
"And you don't have any issues looking after me for a few hours, right?" Lone asked.
Soph didn't understand why he was asking such a strange question, but she still nodded regardless. "O-Of course not."
Lone grinned and pecked her softly. "Good. Well then, one last time, you definitely want your eyesight back, right?"
"Y-Yeah..." Soph replied timidly.
"Wish granted," Lone said in a low and charming tone as he kissed her one last time and pressed his forehead against hers before closing his eyes.
Item does not exist on Altros, however, there are a few like it. 500,000 MP has been consumed to compensate for the difference.
The host has no understanding of the item. 1,000,000 base MP cost. 4,000,000 additional MP has been consumed to compensate for the lack of the host's knowledge.
5,500,000 MP has been consumed to recreate and restructure the item: [Human [Sophie Vladimirovich]'s [Jade Stars of The North]].
Lone's eyes snapped open in shock. "You fuckin' what?!" Not a second later he received a message that he was honestly hoping would just kind of... not appear. It was a foolish dream to pray for the system to ignore what he had just done.
Warning! The host has consumed more MP than they possess. Bracket of extra consumption: 5,000,001-50,000,000 MP. MP has been sealed for 10,000-hours.
"Remember how I said you might have to look after me for a few hours?" Lone asked.
Soph wasn't even listening, however. Tears were pouring out of her eyes as she brought her hands up to her face and very gingerly brought her fingers towards them. "I... I can see you..." Her voice was all choked up and she was barely intelligible.
Lone smiled. He put the girl down and pecked the top of her head. "I might be out for a few days. A fuckin' year-long seal... It kind of feels like a bomb just went off in my head. I'm glad you've got your vision back again, Soph... Your... Your eyes are... beyond words..."
Lone slumped over like a sack of potatoes.
"L-Lone?!" Worry filled Soph's mind as she realised that Lone had passed out. His entire body was hot, his head especially, and sweat covered him from head-to-toe. "Lone!"
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