Several minutes before…

It all started when Skullius received a reward in light of his previous ‘hard work’ from the guidance field.

[Due to repetition of the action of ‘Running Away’, the skill ‘Artless Dodger’ has been acquired!]

Skullius had scratched his head when he first saw it. It was great that he had finally attained a skill from repeating an action, but it was one he was not exactly proud of.

This was more so true when he read its description.

~~~

[Artless Dodger | Lv. 1]

When the odds are stacked against you, enemies of epic proportions coming for your life, summon a 25% increase in agility from the fuel of cowardice, to leave them all in the dust.

Mana Requirements: 30 Mana Points

Duration: 1 minute

Cooldown: 2 minutes

~~~

“It’s not always….cowardice…” Skullius meekly defended himself.

He had escaped into a rather shallow gorge after a lengthy sprint from the conflict between the goblins and orcs. Now, Skullius found himself getting genuinely curious about how the fight had ended. He assumed that Shirota would have the upper hand given his tier but nothing was truly set in stone. At least among the weak.

He had scaled up to see what lay beyond the slope on the other side of the gorge and found another expanse of forestry even more lush than where he had been.

Given the possibility of finding stronger enemies, Skullius decided to take a break and evaluate himself in the gorge.

He sat down on the hard ground, Red Rage sitting along with him silently.

“Hmm… so now you obediently stay put? As long it doesn’t harm your own intentions, huh? You’ll never be satisfied with me just patting your shoulder anymore, will you? Flesh you, intelligence stat! Give me back my loyal Apostle!”

Skullius finished his outburst under the emotionless sockets of Red Rage.

“Come to think of it, its been a while since I checked our statuses. Let’s see.”

Skullius opened the guidance field to check his and Red Rage’s statuses, nodding and shaking his head as he read the contents.

~~~_.

[ Name : Red Rage ]

[ Tier :  0 ]

[ Class : None ]

[ Level : 5 ]

[ Race  : Null Lifeform (Bone Boar)]

[ Inv. Status  : Murderous tendencies on hold ]

——-

[ Stats ]

[ Strength : 30 ]

[Agility : 30 ]

[ Intelligence : 21 ]

[ Endurance : Infinite ]

[ Luck : 5 ]

—–

[ Health : 50/50 ]

——

[ Mana : 1/60 ]

——-

[ Skills ]

[ Null Life Aura | Lv. 1 ]

[ Storming Charge | Lv. 1]

[ Dead End | Lv. 1 ]

[ Flash Throw | Lv. 2 ]

[ Swift Stab | Lv. 1 ]

[ Dash in Dust | Lv. 2 ]

[Climb | Lv. 1 ]

[ Basic Bow Mastery | Lv.3 ]

[ Blessing of Serenity ]

~~~

“Hmm… hmmm Red bro, you have some skills that you haven’t used before. Why?” Skullius asked his short Apostle.

All he received was a shrug.

~~~

[ Name : Skullius ]

[ Tier :  0 ]

[ Class : Vehement Bone Nullmancer ]

[ Level : 5 ]

[ Experience : 1600/8100 ]

[ Race  : Null Lifeform (Boneman) ]

[ Inv. Status  : Doomed (Adverse) x2 ]

——-

[ Stats ]

[ Strength : 60 ]

[Agility : 30 ]

[ Intelligence : 75 ]

[ Endurance : Infinite ]

[ Luck : Atrocious? ]

—–

[ Health : 50/70 ]

——

[ Mana : 100/270 ]

——-

[ Null Life Essence : 1470/3000 ]

——

[ Skills ]

[ Basic Mana Manipulation | Lv. 2 ]

[ Flesh It Like You Mean It | Lv. 1]

[ Static Limbo ]

[ Null Extraction ]

[ Unbound | Lv. 1 ]

[ Null Life Aura | Lv. 1 ]

[ Greater Communication | Lv. 2 ]

[ Artless Dodger | Lv.1 ]

<Class>

[ Apostle Summon | Lv.1 ]

[ Apostle Armament | Lv.1 ]

[ Depths of Core | Lv. 1 ]

[ @%#^$% ]

~~~

“Oh I have some skills that actually levelled up. I guess I have been using [Greater Communication] a lot.”

Skullius analysed everything, once again almost dropping down to the ground when he noticed the amount of experience he needed till the next level. Triple the amount!

Also, while looking at his stats, he couldn’t help but remember that he truly was a mere Tier 0 at the end of the day.

His stats and power just wasn’t growing as fast as he wanted. Perhaps it seemed that way because he had a Doom Factor waiting for him tomorrow which he was less inclined to believe he’d survive.

“Wait, wait, wait! What’s up with my luck?! Is even the guidance field confused or what?! Gah! I wish VOW bro was here!”

Even the information packet he had didn’t have anything that specified about oddities in luck. Perhaps he was a special case.

“Well, might as well recover my arm now that I’m not any danger,” Skullius said exasperatedly.

Mana flowed from Skullius’ white core and bathed his bones. The cracks began to vanish and the lustre of foggy grey returned from the black side that had been burnt.

When the mana reached his shoulder where the arm was missing though, it stopped. It didn’t proceed to regenerate his arm as he thought!

“Hmm? What? I can’t regrow my arm?! Gah! Come on!” Skullius slumped down and allowed the breeze to pass through his body. “This is… maybe fair…”

Perhaps he had been expecting too much. Almost all of his mana was used up now and he felt that he might as well sulk in place, one armed.

Could an evolution fix this? The thought made Skullius yearn but he didn’t have the strength to experiment.

In a mash of bored and loss of faith, Skullius picked up the crooked staff and scrutinised it. The phenomenon where his range for [Unbound] was increased was truly interesting.

The staff ignited with Null Life Essence. This time, Skullius paid attention to every detail that it gave off.

Strangely, when the Essence in the form of a dancing light flame that emitted no heat appeared on the stuff, he noted that his sensitivity to the staff grew.

“Oh…” Skullius said.

He began to immerse himself in the feeling of the staff. He felt like his mind was sinking into the structure of the object.

He couldn’t quite see in the literal sense but he could ‘feel’ what made the staff a staff and not an ordinary stick.

There was a network of connections of mana within the staff that were not very complex when Skullius felt for them.

They were simply straight passages that sometimes intersected like a maze. A very basic one.

As he navigated through this connection of tiny passages, Skullius felt the Null Life Essence flow through them. As soon he found a new passage to navigate through, the Null Life Essence followed too.

Several minutes passed as Skullius engaged in this activity trying to find what would be at the end of discovering all the passages and lacing them Null Life Essence.

He got his answer soon enough, a notification popping up when all the passages he discovered were teeming with Null Life Essence.

[You have mastered the skill ‘Mana Bolt’ from the crooked magic staff. Your understanding of the compounds of the world and mana increases]

…!

Skullius was drawn out of his focused state as he looked to the notification that was floating before him!

He had mastered the skill within the staff?!

He immediately pulled up his status screen again and saw an additional skill sitting within his status panel!

Furthermore…

~~~

[Mana Bolt | Lv.1]

Release a burst of highly condensed mana towards a target do deal damage that disrupts mana flow for a miniscule amount of time.

Mana Requirements: 20 Mana Points

Cooldown: 5 seconds

~~~

The skill had changed!

Its mana requirements had been reduced along with the cooldown. It could be levelled up now and the biggest boon was that it had been enhanced.

Or rather, fully realised!

“Finally! Tktktktkt! Something is going my way! You see this, Red bro! I’ve got some good stuff too!” Skullius yelled while pointing at the Red Rage whose sockets were glowing intensely.