Sol tried to rest, but it didn’t take long for someone to come and ask for his help. The battle outside the fort had ended with the humans' victory, and they had arrived back at the fort. A lot of wounded were brought along with them, and it was up to his team to take care of them.
With a low sigh, he got back up to help the healers.
While exhausted, his job was not very physically demanding. Sol did what he was doing before the orcs infiltrated the fort and directed the wounded where they should go while casting [Aqua Ring] on his patients.
Time flew as the evening light approached. The healers had finished their job, and the wounded were left to rest while they took a much-needed break. They all decided to join the soldiers and adventurers who were eating dinner in the courtyard as the canteen was currently being used as the new medical ward.
Sol sat alongside his fellow healers as he ate a warm meal. The chefs prepared a simple but filling meal of tri-horn deer meat with frost beets that combined to make a very savory dish. Sol took a bite of the meat as it melted in his mouth.
“Wow, how is this so good?”
Caroline, who was sitting near him, answered.
“The chefs probably have a high skill level, check your stats.”
Opening his status page, Sol saw he gained 3 temporary points in vitality. He then used [Analysis] on his plate.
Tri-Horn Deer with Frost Beets
Common
Effects: +3 vitality for 30 minutes
“The effect doesn’t seem that great…”
Caroline shook her head and explained, “A friend of mine who had a cooking talent told me how it works. When cooking a dish, one can add their own mana to enhance its properties, granting greater effects. But when the skill gets high enough, they don’t need to add their own mana for a dish to gain effects as their skill allows them to naturally draw mana from the surroundings into the dish. I doubt the chefs wasted their energy making mana-enhancing dishes for us normal people so for every dish to have even a basic enhancement is impressive.”
One of the healers then chimed in, “I heard that if they evolve their cooking skill, they can even enhance some ingredients that don’t require cooking. Can you imagine eating an apple and it gives you 20 agility?”
A few laughed at the concept, and jokes kept being tossed around. Eventually, everyone finished their meals and retired for the night. Sol would have joined them if not for having to do one more thing.
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He split from the others and went towards a very isolated area of the fort. Away from the canteen and dormitories was a walled-off section of the fort guarded by two soldiers. Seeing Sol’s approach, the two men stopped him.
“Halt! What is your business here?”
“I wish to see the fallen and thank them.”
The two soldiers looked at each other, and without any verbal confirmation, they let him pass.
Sol passed through and into the enclosed area where he saw bodies lined up from wall to wall. A stale air permeated the entire area as Sol approached the bodies. He looked at them with a solemn face but with a hardened resolve underneath.
‘I’m sorry, but for me to improve, I must do this. I hope you will forgive me.’
Sol then raised his hand and used [Siphon], grabbing the most useful skills he saw.
Learned [Meditation] Lv 1
[Rage] leveled up! (5 -> 6)
[Snap Punch] leveled up! (2 -> 3)
From left to right, Sol was methodologically siphoning skills, but after the 50th body, he noticed something.
‘The skills are rising way too slowly.’
To confirm something, Sol opened the skill description for [Siphon].
[Siphon] Lv 3: Siphon 2 skills from dead beings. Increased efficiency, lowers the longer they are dead.
‘I know it said it had lower efficiency the longer they were dead but it's not even been a day…’
In total, after siphoning 50 bodies, he could only increase the level of 5 skills by one and gained only 2 new skills. If the skill level isn't at least 7, Sol couldn’t even gain the first level of the skill and needed multiple tries of the same skill to gain it.
‘While it loses in quality, I can at least make it up in quantity.’
After going through 50 corpses, there were still over 200 more to go, so the gains can still be considerable.
Because [Siphon] at level 3 allowed Sol to siphon multiple bodies at a time, he was able to go through them all rather fast. 15 minutes later, he was already done.
From all the skills he gained, Sol was able to raise [Leap] and [Parry] to level 10 and was given the prompt to evolve it. Without hesitation, he accepted.
[Leap] evolved into [Ground Shrink]!
[Parry] evolved into [Counter]!
[Ground Shrink] Lv 1: Launch yourself in a designated direction with blinding speed. Maximum distance: 10 meters. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
[Counter] Lv 1: Skillfully able to deflect an attack and create an opening. If the user attacks in that window it will deal 50% more damage.
‘While the cooldown for [Ground Shrink] increased, the distance and speed which I can cover it is near instant. If I didn’t own the skill and know exactly how it worked, if I saw someone else use it I would think they are teleporting. They don't even leave an afterimage. With [Counter], it will enable me to deal insane damage by not only creating more openings but if combined with [Cross Slash], not even the tankiest person can survive that.’
Besides a lot of general skills leveling up, [Analysis] also gained a level. Though its description did not change.
With all the bodies siphoned, Sol gave the bodies one final thanks before heading back to his room. While it was still evening and people were celebrating, Sol was exhausted. Not only was he healing and dealing with problems all day, but he also had to fight as well and he wasn’t used to such long fights. The only reason Sol hasn’t passed out yet is thanks to his high vitality, but mentally he was already checked out.
Sol did not make any stops on the way and even avoided people in fear of being asked to do something and headed straight to his bed. The moment Sol landed on his bed he instantly fell asleep.