Giving up on the language skill, he wanted to replace it with something that would make him feel the cost was worth it. He honestly had a few skills he was aiming for, but only one was important enough, and he didn't know how to get it yet.
The skill he couldn't do without was the spatial storage one. He refused to believe that his affinity wasn't able to achieve that kind of thing, he just didn't know how.
So for the next day while he studied lightly with Melissa, he tried to come up with ideas on how the skill might work.
Thankfully, Melissa explained to him that re-learning a lost skill was a lot harder than learning it the first time, so he didn't need to worry about studying too much and getting the skill back. And if he wanted the skill in the future, he could simply study his tail off.
He took a deep breath in, forcing his ether to move outside his body. The ether obeyed his will like an extra limb, and he felt like an idiot for not getting that last level on Ether Manipulation for so long. He just didn't expect the difference would be this great.
His ether felt heavy, like a cloud with presence. Instead of condensing the ether, this time he tried his best to integrate it with the space around him as best as possible. The ether resisted his will, and he felt like he was on the right track. It was like he met a wall he couldn't break through, but having maxed his ether manipulation he felt like he could put more of his will behind his control.
When he finally broke through the barrier a minute later, he focused all of his senses on the space around him, seeing the results in fascinating horror as the world around him started to weaken and crumble. He felt like he could go much further than this though, and so he did.
A second later the fascination was gone and he was left with horror as only one meter away from him space started to crack in multiple places just as Melissa entered the room.
The world FROZE as he focused every aspect of his body into perception, his body subsequently falling to the ground, the cracks expanding at the same time he fought to close them.
Numerous cracks closed before they expanded past a millimeter in diameter, the rest following soon after. He felt like he'd run a marathon in a second.
Melissa noticed his sudden horror when she entered into the room. Staring at the heavily breathing cat, her smile turned into a frown, "What did you do this time."
"Mistake... remind me not to experiment inside the house next time."
His Spatial Rend skill went from level 3 to level 5 in the blink of an eye, and he cursed at the dumb skill and his even dumber self. What did he think was going to happen when he pushed a weakened space past its limit?
It was... not what he was going for, and entirely too dangerous to be testing inside the city even, but he would be getting back to it after they started dungeon delving.
"I'm sorry," he said to Melissa as she stared at him, waiting for the explanation. "I used a dangerous skill; almost hurt you."
He tensed his body as she approached, expecting her to be angry.
Nothing happened for a second and he tentatively looked up. She sat at an eye level with him, "We all make mistakes. No one got hurt, so I don't worry about it. If you think you did bad, I've probably done worse," she said, her hair falling over her shoulders, "now, do you want to go get some food?"
She wasn't as angry as he thought she was going to be. He remained silent, but she didn't need to say anything else through their bond, and he soon followed after her to the kitchen.
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Cassandra was juggling between carrying three plates and a glass of water, with Edel staring in amazement. "Oh, you got him to leave his room?" she said with a smile, "I didn't believe you could manage."
"Yeah, he's been stuck trying to figure out his next skill." Melissa looked behind her at the exhausted looking cat. He was regaining his energy quickly though, so she wasn't worried. She was still going to the market for something nutritious he would like. That skill couldn't be good for his body.
Cassandra didn't take her focus away from the plates until she let them on the table, "Well, he should try visiting the library then," she said, to which Melissa stopped dead in her tracks.
Another second later Cassandra could swear Kiel's meow felt a tad bit incredulous.
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They have a free library here and I've been wasting my time trying to figure everything out on my own?!
Of course, after brainstorming for the entire day, he did end up with an idea on how to use Spatial Rend, so it wasn't entirely a waste of time. He'd somewhat given up on the skill after being unable to use it outside quiet zones for so long. He expected to have to reach level 10 in it before it became useful, but recent experimentation proved that wrong.
Not that he would have been able to accomplish that without Ether Manipulation reaching level 10. He also needed to see how his increased control affected the rest of his skills.
He could probably enhance his body with Ether to greater efficiency, and he would see if the increased control allowed him to teleport further away than a meter or three.
There was also that time he accidentally ended up hundreds of meters in the air, which also needed a bit more investigating.
Shaking his head, he focused on the present, and the present was about getting an inventory skill once and for all.
Melissa, of course, felt the need to take the wind out of his sails, "We might not be able to find something about a complex subject like spatial magic, but it won't hurt to look for relevant information," she said, adding with a smile, "Worst case, we steal from the personal library of a noble for the information you need."
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He looked at her like she was a new person, but she only smiled cheerfully. "If you do decide to steal from one of those private libraries by the way, I have a list."
He did a double take.
Well, she wasn't wrong, now he was too curious to not give the idea some serious consideration.
Going inside the library, Kiel was amazed by the hundreds of books all neatly sorted in huge bookshelves. The bookshelves themselves seemed to be protected by sigils, and any would-be thieves would probably be spotted before taking a single step outside the library.
They searched dozens of rows of books, enlisting the help of a young librarian who seemed eager to help. He pointed them towards the section with affinities where they still had to go through hundreds of books to find what they wanted.
Finally almost two hours later, they convened with three books in total. The first book was about the history of Spatial Affinity, which if he was being honest didn't really interest him all that much. It mostly held examples of how spatial magic had been used in large scale battles or a few notable examples of great adventurers using them in combat.
Having to follow the others searching books for him and not being able to help was annoying. He wanted to search too, but since he couldn't read that wouldn't accomplish much.
Perhaps he removed the Language skill too early. No, he shook his head. If he kept the skill, removing it would have been all the more difficult and he didn't want to get stuck with another "climbing" skill. And learning the language proved to be more fun than he expected and he didn't need a skill's help for that.
He would take it one step at a time. The spoken language was just easier with his bond with Melissa. That said, he wondered if the nobles' language had a different written language as well, or if the basis was the same.
Melissa came with the second book which spoke in detail about notable adventurers who used Spatial Affinity in the past. Seeing the subject matter, he excitedly picked up the book, but almost every second sentence was crossed off, or marked "Redacted".
Basically the only information that remained in the book was a few mentions of levels and titles along with a brief history about the adventurers.
In particular, the Planar Aleos was the most interesting of them all. Noted as one of the generals that protected this kingdom, he was an Onyx ranked adventurer confirmed to be over level 100. His eyes grew large when Melissa told him the man was a few hundred years old at this point.
Unfortunately, however, there wasn't much else in the book and a lot of information was missing from it.
The third and final, book, however, was almost perfect for what Kiel needed. It wasn't a book about spatial manipulation, but a crafting one. Crafting a spatial storage that is.
Melissa opened that one in excitement, but her face fell soon after, "It really is a crafting book... more like a log than an actual book, I somehow doubt whoever wrote this knew how to write."
Taking a look at the book she held in her arms, he stared at it in confusion. The only things he could vaguely recognize from the alien characters were the sigils written in bigger format than the rest of the letters. They were also more complex than the letters next to them.
There was a large wall of text next to every sigil, and then a few pages later more walls of text only without sigils.
He couldn't make sense of what he was reading, but thankfully he had Melissa to explain for him, "Basically a record of the sigils required to make a low grade spatial storage, which to the man's credit is incredibly detailed."
She spent the last half an hour reading the book in her hands, and Kiel kept her company. Finally she put it down and massaged her head, "Well, it might be useful. Reading at the explanations behind every sigil I think I get the general gist. The man wasn't a spatial mage and this was a spatial storage for people without spatial affinity so a lot of the sigils are used to convert natural ether to spatial ether and stabilize it." She pointed at a few sigils at the beginning of the book.
"He basically uses the spatial ether after that to create space on top of existing space and uses an entirely different set of sigils to hold that one stable." She pointed at the sigils in the next few pages, "The man then anchored the created space to the storage unit." She went over the pages to the most complicated symbols he'd ever seen. "And that's basically it. The next few pages talk about compatibility and synchronization issues between sigils."
In essence making a spatial storage was building your own space and wrapping it tightly and then tying it into a physical space. Even if the book didn't resemble the advanced geometry books he had to read for university, he could understand how difficult making one was.
Considering how difficult it was, he wondered if there was anyone skilled enough to make a spatial ring. Such an artifact would probably be valuable enough for countries to fight over, especially if it had a lot of space inside it.
A spatial backpack seemed more reasonable in that sense. Most likely it would still be expensive enough to bankrupt half of this entire city, but he could see stronger adventurers having the money and need for something like that.
He returned with Melissa back to their home in excitement before remembering what happened last time he experimented indoors, and made a beeline towards the back of the house where they had a small backyard.
All of the things the man needed sigils for, he was fairly certain he could replace with his Spatial Affinity and will. Probably... well, it stood to reason he should at least give it a try.
Before starting, he had another great idea and sacrificed some of his vitality to enhance his perception. The world lost some of its color, but he ignored that, instead focusing on his spatial sense.
Slowly he let his ether gather into a cloud in front of him. Where before he tried to integrate the spatial ether with the space around him, this time he did the opposite.
He used Ether Manipulation in tandem with Spatial Manipulation, ordering the spatial ether to expand and keeping it separate from the space around it with his will.
The space he created was one dimensional, could hold nothing and wanted to immediately join the space around it. He had to focus on multiple different things at the same time in order to keep it stable, but before he could progress to the next step, he slipped and the space he was creating disappeared in the space around it like a glass of water in the ocean.
He could feel the space becoming more rigid for a second, before it returned to normal just as quickly.
The failure didn't deject him. If anything, he finally felt like he was getting somewhere. Another two failed attempts later he was out of ether, but his excitement hadn't diminished. He felt that he was getting closer with each attempt.
The system probably wouldn't reward him with the skill before he managed to actually create a working spatial pocket, but he could see light at the end of the tunnel.
When he returned inside the house, Melissa asked him how it went. "I think I can do it." He answered her with eagerness in his thoughts, sharing his excitement over the bond.
It wasn't only Melissa who received those emotions, of course, as he felt all too happy to not share his progress. Edel ran into the room, growling and breaking a plate in her rush as she jumped towards him in the same excitement.
He was startled enough that he teleported away on top of the table, which caused another accident as Edel too jumped on top of the small table, breaking two drinking glasses and throwing half the stuff on it to the floor.
Cassandra yelled from the other room, and Kiel couldn't help but burst out laughing.
Melissa was not all too happy at the mess, and she forced them into their room until she cleaned it up. The howls of excitement took a few minutes longer to stop as they started chasing each other in the room, Edel having gotten surprisingly fast at predicting where he was teleporting to.
Of course, he had gotten faster and better at teleporting, so he managed to stay on top of the chase before he ran out of the little ether he'd regained since his experiments.