I walked around the battlefield, collecting the skill stones. Not that it took a long time, as there were merely fifteen of them. It meant, about only one in thirty of the beasts had dropped a skill.

Of those fifteen skill stones, nine of them didn't react, showing that I lacked the prerequisite conditions to activate them. And, since the dungeon didn't drop anything truly rare, I guessed it was related to missing stats rather than anything I could match. Perception, Charisma, Wisdom … and, my biggest achilles heel, Intelligence.

That, or they might be some commonplace spell schemas or construction recipes that required a specific ability. Then, I started examining the six that I received.

[Skill Stone: Overhead Strike (Basic)]

[Skill Stone: Ice Blast (Basic)]

[Skill Stone: Nurture (Basic)]

[Skill Stone: Nurture (Basic)]

[Skill Stone: Swipe (Basic)]

[Skill Stone: Stab (Basic)]

Ice Blast had immediately caught my attention among the available skills. A magic skill, something incredibly tempting in more ways than one. However, no matter how tempting it was, I didn't absorb it immediately.

A dungeon wasn't the best place for starting a new experiment. It was better to focus on the one I had in front of me.

The other five skill stones weren't as interesting. Nurture was the sole class skill of Farmers, which was a class that was even more unfortunate than Blacksmiths. Not only were they limited to receiving only one point of Vitality, but they also received only one class skill, which could be used to hasten the growth of the plants.

One that used their Health in return.

They almost exclusively worked in greenhouses, growing food. While monster meat could be used as a food, metabolizing the enhanced food they produced was faster. The basic variant, in particular, was useless at this point.

Of the three combat skills, two of them were worthless. At this point, the basic skills were plentiful enough to be picked for a few copper coins, and even a common combat skill wasn't too different. I hadn't changed mine before, mostly because I hadn't been planning to go to the trouble of improving my proficiency from the start.

Actually, absorbing Stab was tempting as well. Just like how Overhead Strike was a basic hammer skill, Stab was a basic spear skill. Adding another weapon to the mix was an alluring idea, particularly after confirming that I was able to gain a Perk from improving external skills.

A simple perk, maybe, but only through the existence of my Perks was I able to break through the limits of the skills.

"One step at a time," I said even as I collected the skill stones, not absorbing any of them.

Before absorbing them, I needed to confirm that the rapid improvement trick actually worked with weapons other than hammer, which was not a given.

"Let's see if it works," I muttered even as I retreated back toward my cart. On the way, I had killed a few insects, but I didn't bother using any mana. Instead, I focused on collecting their shells to put on the cart. It was better to be safe than sorry.

When I arrived, the cart had been untouched. I put the shells I collected there as well as all skills except three — Stab, Nurture, and Ice Blast — before I changed my weapons to sword and shield. It was finally the time to test the skill properly.

I attacked the air. My movement was direct, straightforward, and most importantly, incompetent, which was inevitable. One point of proficiency didn't mean much, and the glaring mistakes were even more obvious after bringing another combat skill to hundred.

I ignored them, and instead tried to use mana in my storage to attack. It would be easier to use than Mana Blow.

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[-2 Mana]

It failed.

"That's not good," I muttered. I was very confident that I could use the mana to enhance the attack, but it didn't even take hold around the sword. I tried the same thing multiple times, trying to modify the shape of the mana.

Even when I depleted most of my mana, it failed. My unfamiliarity was not helping. "I need to watch a swordsman use mana attacks," I deduced, which was not exactly easy to find. I didn't know if Eleanor was capable of using mana. She might be depending on the class, as there were multiple hybrid classes. But, I didn't see her use one. And, I couldn't ask her about it without looking suspicious.

She wasn't like Maria, willing to entertain my random questions. Nor was she careless enough not to realize she would be revealing potential secrets.

Waiting for Maria was the easiest way. It was likely that she had a melee external skill that she could use for emergencies. I remembered that she carried a dagger. However, I needed to wait almost five days for her. There were other ways to handle things.

"And, I don't need mana for the first step, do I?" I said to myself. Just because the mana trick didn't work didn't mean I didn't have any other option.

I made a simple forward attack with the sword a few times, then switched to hammer, replicating the attack. Of course, the weapons were really different, but so was the difference between one point of proficiency and a hundred.

More importantly, there was a lot of overlap between two melee skills, just like there was a strong overlap between Repair and Forge. The concept of balance, momentum, maintaining a distance … all had been a relevant part of it.

It took merely five swings to improve my skill once.

[Stalwart Guard (Uncommon) 1 - 2]

I was more than happy to discover another way to improve the skill. Clearly, it wasn't too effective, barely matching the speed of killing monsters, especially with the momentum lacking. I practiced for ten minutes.

[Stalwart Guard (Uncommon) 2 - 11]

The improvement was nice, but not as high as it could have been. It slowed down significantly once I passed the ten point mark. It was barely enough to fight against monsters.

However, I didn't rush to fight against them immediately. I only had one shield, and I didn't want to ruin it with a mistake.

"Speaking of shields," I said even as I paused, focusing on the skill once more. I referred to it as a sword skill, but it wasn't, was it? It was a sword and shield skill. Once I reached ten proficiency, several moves that included the shield in a more offensive manner had opened up.

That put a big smile on my face for one, good reason. In terms of momentum, a shield attack was more similar to a hammer than a sword. "Let's try it again," I said. I started another round of practice, this time focusing on shield attacks over sword ones.

The skill continued to rise. Half an hour of practice had been enough to bring my skill to a new stage.

[Stalwart Guard (Uncommon) - 25]

"Cheating is fun," I said even as I started moving deeper once again. While I had been fighting, I had been interrupted by the occasional monster, but I chose to deal with them using my hammer. It was the first time I was going to use a sword.

I approached an insect, trusting the skill to do its job. When the beast attacked, I took a step to the side, and slammed it with my shield. Unbalanced, I followed with multiple attacks, a combination of shield and sword, relying on the direction of the skill.

[Stalwart Guard (Uncommon) 25 - 26]

The reward was nice, but the damage to both my sword and shield was considerable. No wonder they dealt with the monster by distracting it.

Still. It was a reasonable sacrifice. The damage to weapons would explain how I was able to improve the combat skill that quickly. An improvement I wanted to reveal, at least to some degree. It would be less suspicious than suddenly defending myself with incredible proficiency if the need arose.

"Now, the next trick," I said as I tried to time my attacks with a mana burst.

It wasn't like the mana blow. It didn't impact my attack. However, it managed to interfere with the corrosion effect, preventing the weapons from slowly getting damaged. It was another trick, but not a particularly valuable one. Simply repairing them was easier.

"Still, it's always better to know more rather than less," I said, more than happy with my performance.

After killing a few more beasts, I started experimenting once more, doing my best to correct the skill based on the feedback of the hammer attacks. I occasionally switched weapons just to refresh my memory.

Soon, another dozen insects fell under my attacks, and I ripped their shells before they faded. Though, even as I repeated the attack, I noticed an interesting detail. The ones with their shells ripped didn't seem to drop skills at the same rate.

"Interesting. Too bad it's not statistically significant," I pondered. I needed to kill a lot of beasts and test it that way. However, first, I wanted to finish improving my sword skill. I continued killing, not only collecting shells, but also improving the skill high enough to — hopefully — impress Eleanor without alarming her.

[Stalwart Guard (Uncommon) - 41]

"Impressive, but not groundbreaking," I finally said. The best part, the way I improved it was actually replicable. She could test it with another hammer expert, and they would get some results.

Not at the same level, but enough to keep her from getting suspicious.

I returned to the cart to drop my sword and shield along with the excess shells. Then, I moved deeper, hammer in hand, feeling strangely excited that I would be able to run the experiment myself. The day had been filled with fascinating discoveries.

Maybe that had been my mistake all along, I decided. I relied on others to collect data, rather than doing it myself.

I had another experiment to run.