Kiel woke up with a start from another nightmare. He thought he was doing better, but every once in a while he would have another dream to remind him of his place. In those dreams he either was back on Earth, or he was trapped inside his body as someone else lived his life... and sometimes it was both.

Thankfully Edel always seemed to notice when he had a bad dream and kept him company.

It had been another month from when he started training his skills more seriously. His biggest gain was a skill that was long in the making, namely Ether Manipulation. He managed to get the skill half a month ago, and it had become his main focus alongside with spatial ether.

In the meanwhile, he had also been trying to get more skills to level up, to no avail. He'd started getting worried he had done irreparable damage to himself and he couldn't learn any new skills, when he got Ether Manipulation. That eased his worries a bit, but it was evident that getting new skills had gotten a lot harder.

Heck, he had been expecting a meditation skill to appear for some time now and it seemed like he would need to keep waiting. Something that had helped him more than meditation though was following Edel. He didn't deal damage to any monster like an overexcited idiot this time, and it was quickly becoming his favorite pastime.

Then there were the results of his training. He couldn't say much about the maxed skills as their growth was almost nonexistent, but for the rest of them? He'd learnt a lot more about how his spatial skills behaved, as well as making good progress in reaching their maximum levels.

Name - Kiel

Level - 11*

Titles - Traveler, Indomitable, Ritualist

Body - 15

Mind - 20

Spirit - 27

Skills - Body Adaptation (Lvl 10) [Max], Climbing (Lvl 7), Ether Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Affinity Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Manipulation (Lvl 9), Spatial Rend (Lvl 2), Spatial Shift (Lvl 10) [Max], Ether Manipulation (Lvl 6)

He also devoted some of his time to leveling his climbing skill, though it was more tedious and boring than he thought it would be. He just didn't know how to push it when climbing had become so easy. Then again all he was doing was climbing the same trees over and over again. It wasn't like there was much of a challenge in that.

Spatial Manipulation would soon be reaching level 10, and he'd also made good headway in Ether Manipulation. He gained the skill when he'd been practicing how to make shapes with Spatial Ether instead of condensing it, and that gave him an idea as to why it'd taken so long.

His theory was simple, but as with many things, he lacked more data to confirm it. In any case, the theory was that skills close to each other had their experience eaten by the other skill, not letting them advance. If that were really the case, he had gotten somewhat lucky with Ether Sense.

He remembered how easy it had been to level up his Affinity Sense when all he could see was Spatial Ether and the ripples of space. But to level up his Ether sense, he'd needed to spend a lot more effort and time. Probably the only reason he managed to level those two up so fast was because of the environment.

Then there was his favorite skill, Spatial Shift. Leveling up that one had been... fun. Teleporting around and jumping from tree to tree was like a fantasy coming alive and he devoted more time to it each time he trained.

You have maxed out your skill, Spatial Shift! You have gained +2 in Mind, and +1 in the Spirit attribute. Spatial Shift cost has decreased by 20%.

Using the skill had become second nature to him, and although he hadn't tested it in an actual fight yet, it was the first thing he was planning on doing once he was able to fight. Leveling up Spatial and Ether Manipulation had been critical in getting the skill to work. Leveling the skill itself had made it more accurate and easy to use, but to bring the time down enough that it was usable in a fight he needed to mess with his Ether manipulation.

In the end Spatial Shift was coating himself with Spatial Ether and using his will to move through space. The key component was still his Ether no matter how much the skill itself streamlined the process.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Whereas before he needed to focus for several seconds, his fastest time now was nothing more than a single second. The only thing he couldn't do yet was teleport in quick succession. He always needed an extra few seconds after the first teleport, and it only got worse the more subsequent jumps he did.

Edel was sleeping next to him when she woke up with a startle. Seeing her awake and alert he also focused and noticed the vibrations on the ground. Something was running in their direction. He couldn't see anything from here, so he climbed up the tree next to him.

He saw half a dozen goblins chasing a monkey through the forest. The monkey was unable to outpace them, although it'd managed to avoid being killed with its higher agility. It danced between the trees and threw rocks at them whenever it could.

It wasn't like he wanted to save the monkey, he just didn't want the goblins to succeed in anything they were trying to do. So far he had determined that so long as he didn't cause harm personally to the creature killed, nothing would happen. He just needed to not hit and to not get hit... simple.

The goblins would reach them in a minute or two, so they didn't have much time to prepare. Getting down from the tree, he looked at Edel. She was looking ready to tear someone apart, and he had no doubt about what she was going to do to the poor goblins.

As soon as the goblins reached them, Edel jumped on top of the nearest goblin from behind a tree, tearing its throat apart in a single attack. As for Kiel, he ran towards the rest of the goblins right behind her, but when he was about to reach them he disappeared, appearing a few meters behind them.

That threw them in for a loop and Edel had the opportunity to take another one down.

Kiel didn't stop running, this time turning back again towards the goblins that were focusing on Edel. When he got close enough to grab their attention he teleported away again. He was itching to teleport in, slash their throats and vanish, but he'd learnt his lesson. As soon as this curse went away, he would be the nightmare goblins would tell their children and their children's children about... assuming any were left alive.

But unfortunately all he could do for now was be as annoying as he possibly could. Considering the two goblins that had started to chase him, he was doing his job fairly well. The monkey never looked back, however, and disappeared without a trace.

It was a shame because he'd been expecting it to stay and fight with them.

Edel had to contend with two goblins on her own, but although she got hit a few times, it was nothing serious and the goblins paid for each hit with their life.

The moment she took down the second goblin, he turned to deliver another two to her. He wanted to let her catch her breath for a few seconds, but unfortunately it seemed like the goblins were already starting to lose interest in him.

Kiel ran in front of them, baiting another attack before he teleported away again. That was enough of a distraction for Edel to reach the other goblin, biting its arm and using strength to throw it to the ground. Her sharp fangs made short work of the unarmored goblin but not before the distracted one reached her.

It managed to hit her square in the head, and she backed off. Unfortunately it was too late for the other goblin. And when it died, she was back with a vengeance.

During this entire fight, Kiel had wanted to help so badly his claws carved the stone below him like it was made out of clay.

Thankfully, while she had gotten hurt, it didn't seem to be anything serious. After taking care of the last goblin, however, something strange happened. Edel sat down as her body started to tremble. She barely let out a whimper, but with each passing second the trembling got worse.

It was a deeply disturbing sight to behold and he was scared something had happened to her. He was ready to start blaming himself when her body started to change.

Her body grew larger, her fangs and claws seemed sharper even if nothing had changed in their outer appearance. Her fur gained a silver gleam and her eyes looked positively terrifying to look at.

It was as if she grew a few years older in a matter of seconds. And when he said older, he really meant stronger, because the feeling she gave off now was incomparable to what he felt from her before.

To test her strength, she went up to the nearest tree and using her claws, she tore centimeter-deep gouges in it, longer than her claws had any right to be. It was as if a bear had marked the tree, only she barely seemed to put in the effort.

It was at times like these he wanted to be able to see her level, or have the ability to understand her howls and barks.

She seemed to be pretty close in strength to him last time he checked. Or at least not far ahead that he couldn't make up the difference with his skills, because otherwise she was way stronger than him.

He wondered if the change had come from level 20 or higher... No, it can't be higher than level 20.

He was even more eager to level up, but unfortunately looking at his status window revealed the same old warning. As for Edel, she seemed eager to test herself against stronger enemies. Or more goblins, both were equally likely.

He never thought he would be afraid of getting left behind, but here he was... and he still couldn't level up.

Nevertheless, he felt happy for her, and seeing her tail wagging and running around him excitedly, his put his worries away. There was a time to feel sad for himself, and there was a time to be happy.

Seeing her run around and over the fallen leaves, he couldn't help but join her as a smile formed across his face.

She jumped over him and he teleported over her. That sparked a playful fight where neither could come out on top as whenever she did he teleported above her and sat on top of her head.