Lone was exhausted. Sure, his SP was maxed out so he wasn't physically tired, but mentally he was drained.
'Over ten times what it cost to fix your body originally. I bet her going from SS-rank to SSS-ranker played a much larger part in that than me improving her limbs and organs did,' Lone thought as he watched Lossa walk off into the distance to, hopefully, go home and rest.
He sighed and shook his head. 'Still, it was worth it. I have a bunch of new skills to check out now... Let's do that while we slowly make our way over to Grimsley, shall we?'
With excitement, he opened his notification log just after he had closed the main gate to his Spirit Pavilion.
'Worthless then, unless I can contract a spirit somehow. Well, there is the frog here and whatever other spirits are hiding in the lake. Probably tadpoles or tiny frogs, right? Doesn't sound that intimidating,' Lone thought. 'Still, it's a new magic type so that's another option for freeform magic. Lossa's white shield thing was freeform spirit magic, wasn't it? Might have to try to copy that at some point.'
'Basic, as expected. What I'm really curious about is how much did letting those spirit projections attack me until Lossa killed them herself level the skill up?' Lone asked himself and soon got his answered.
It had levelled 17 times. A very respectable amount indeed. It had gone from beginner-level-one to intermediate-level-eight. Of course, the bonus had risen from 5% to 15% as expected, and there were no new effects with this skill.
Next came the skill Lone really cared about. That blue fireball comet of Lossa's. He was sure he'd be able to use that given it had actually done some serious damage to him.
Of course, he had healed himself immediately, but the damned thing likely would have killed him if he didn't have decent mastery of the the skills Oaken Flesh, Blood Clone, Fire Resistance and Heat Resistance.
He thought it was just a fire magic skill but it wasn't, it was star magic so he might have been toast had he not possessed such a wide range of resistances. 'Really need to find some way to identify what type of magic a spell is. This was eye opening. Maybe I can incorporate that into whatever device Grim and I come up with to help Soph hide her MP. Me too as well, probably. I'll need to hide my MP eventually.'
'Expensive. Expensive but very, very interesting. This is my first skill that has conditions to make it stronger, isn't it? Yulia told me about star and moon magic, they're both quite rare and very powerful under the right conditions... Hmm... This spell in particular might be helpful against Zel if levelled to master-rank,' Lone thought.
Of course, it came with a new resistance too.
This new resistance had levelled all the way up to advanced-level-five, but that was likely a result of both Charged Comet and the second star magic spell Lossa had used to lock Lone in place. It hadn't gained any new effects but regardless, it now boasted the usual 30% weakening effect that advanced resistances came with.
Next in the list was the levels he had earned for his existing skills and resistances.
'Huh. Didn't expect that. I was just trying to get her to keep fighting me. Kind of expected a level in Persuasion, but what did I teach her? I guess to not give up when it doesn't serve you to do so. Hopefully the lesson sticks and I didn't traumatise her by blowing her up,' Lone hoped as he kept reading his logs.
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Lone was expecting a level or two for Force Flight to follow that torrent of level-ups, or perhaps the second star magic skill from Lossa to pop up, but no, he instead had earned an unexpected skill that sounds very useful, and very painful for a normal person to earn.
'Extremely useful. However, spells backlashing usually results in mana organs being permanently damaged kinda like overusing them does. So it's an incredible skill that comes at a massive cost for ordinary people. I wonder if I 'taught' Timos this skill, huh? Even if it was his first ever case of backlash, I crippled him for life so I think he deserves the skill, hah,' Lone thought.
'You didn't cripple him, Loney-boy. Death and I did,' Darkness commented.
'Through my body,' Lone countered to which he only received an amused chuckle in response.
Shaking his head, Lone continued. There wasn't much left to his notification logs now.
'So, what, do you control them and then fix them in place, or are they always fixed in place but you can move them while others can't affect them? Not the most helpful description,' Lone grumbled internally.
Of course, this skill levelled up a massive amount given that it had never been used before until today where Lone used it a dozen times to defeat a triple-S-ranker. It stopped at advanced-level-six.
Instead of reading about its upgrade one at a time, Lone instead mentally willed the skill's information to relay all of its changes from beginner-level-one to advanced-level-six in one go.
'Huh. So pulling a sneaky one over on Lossa was rewarded by Altros, now was it? I mean that's good. Now it just needs an effect to stop the overly perceptive from noticing the oxygen levels getting fucked with,' Lone thought. 'Also, I'm becoming a fire mage, aren't I? My highest level spell is advanced-level-six and there's two of 'em, this one and Fireball.'
Lone chuckled at that as he entered the room he'd left Grimsley in with his mana masking items.
"Destroyed everything yet?" he asked.
The dwarf replied, "No, ye done gawkin' at yer notification log yet?" without even so much as looking up at him.
Lone smiled. "No."
"Then shut yer trap an' get finished wae 'at so we can start," Grimsley ordered.
"Whatever you say, boss," Lone replied to which he got an amused grunt in response.
Next on the list was the new skill he had earned from his sneaky explosive fire magic attack.
'Ah, so it's just Oxygen Ignition but less of a mental strain since the skill does the heavy lifting. I wonder though, since I could handle 12 of those, could I handle 12 of these? That would be 60 ignitions, exactly five-times as many as I needed to almost kill Lossa...' Lone had to resist the urge to lick his lips. 'I need an air magic skill that can create oxygen. Until I can get that, looks like I'll be storing a fuckton of it in the good ol' Dimensional Storage.'
The last set of notifications he had waiting for him were simple enough.
Fire Magic Resistance had increased from intermediate-level-five to advanced-level-six. It didn't come with any new effects. All that had improved was the percentage bonus went from 15% to 30% as expected.
Lone cracked his neck and reached into his Dimensional Storage. He pulled out two sets of steamforged glasses. He then handed one too Grimsley.
"Ah gave those tae ya wae the intent ah ya keepin 'em. It's disrespectful as feck tae return- Wait. Two?" Grimsley had just spotted the other pair in Lone's other hand.
Grinning, he replied, "You're not getting yours back. They're mine. Those are a set I made. Remember, I was taught by Gramps too."
Grimsley frowned under his beard and grabbed the offered glasses. He began inspecting them and said, "Nae bad, but clearly the work o' ah beginner. Well, maybe ye've got Steamforgin' tae intermediate-rank... maybe."
"I do, but I don't have much practical experience. I have Gramp's mini-forge and an automaton I stole from the capital. Wanna take it apart once we're done with these things?" Lone offered with a raised eyebrow. "I can try to forcefully teach you the Steamforging skill. I have Teaching Mastery at expert-level-three, so even if you say you've got shit talent in it, I can likely make it happen."
Grimsley looked him in the eyes. "Lad, if ye're tryin' tae seduce me, it's feckin' workin'."
"Haha, I'll take that as a yes. Well, let's get to work then. I need these analysed and ready to be improved massively as soon as possible," Lone said.
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