Without much else to do, I simply sat at the side of the road, waiting for Diane to arrive. To my surprise, it didn’t take long, and she appeared within five minutes of sending me the message saying that she was on her way. Was she already outside of the city?

As before, Diane appeared to see directly through my stealth, walking over to me as soon as she was close. “Hello.” She said with a small nod, before glancing off to the side. “Huh… helpful.”

Realizing that she must have just gotten some skill, I didn’t press the matter. Instead, I issued the quest that I had prepared while waiting for Diane to arrive. Simply put, her quest was to provide me with an offensive magic skill. Meanwhile, the quest reward was the Sneak Attack skill that she wanted so much.

“Have you not logged out yet?” I asked, to which Diane looked up at me, handing over the skill book.

“For dinner. Going to bed after this.” She answered, and I nodded my understanding, marking the quest as completed. A small smile appeared on her face, though that only led me to mention what had been on my mind from the start.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t already have this skill, especially if you took out a mutated monster with fire magic.”

Diane’s smile vanished, her eyes narrowing slightly. “They always see me when I approach. I need to train Sneak more.”

“What level is it at now?” I asked curiously, causing her to glance off to the side to check.

“Fifteen.” My eyes widened when I heard that. I had leveled up Sneak by keeping it constantly active, even when I slept, but it was only at eight. Was this the difference in her technique when it came to ‘channeling’ her skill?

“I-I see. You should be able to evolve it soon, then.” I said, and Diane’s eyes immediately focused on me.

“Evolve?”

“Right. Skills can evolve. If it’s a ‘first tier’ skill like Sneak, Power Attack, or so on, it can evolve at level twenty to become a higher form of the skill. More powerful skills might require levels thirty, fifty, or even one hundred to evolve. Of course, you can choose not to evolve it if you want to keep the basic skill.”

That seemed to confuse Diane. “Why wouldn’t you evolve?”

“Evolving resets the skill’s level, but you keep the bonuses of the previous skill at the level you had it. However, it also resets the skill’s mana burden. So you could go from having a skill you can keep up all the time to a slightly more powerful one that you can only keep active for a few seconds. Alternatively, some special skills might require multiple skills to be at a certain level to evolve together.”

Diane blinked, but nodded her head in understanding. “I see.” She said, before looking around. “Is there a safe place to log out?”

I hesitated, before shaking my head. “If you run back to the city, they will let you in, but we’re still a long ways from the next village.”

Diane gave another nod. “Here will do, then.” She said, before her player mark faded to a dull red. Immediately, her eyes widened, letting out a small gasp. Her eyes turned kinder, as did her voice. “S-Sorry, would you mind if I stay with you for the night?” Her chosen asked, and I nodded my head. “Thanks.” She smiled much more naturally than when her player was in control.

“It’s not a problem.” I shook my head. “Do you need to rest? She probably kept you active all day, right?”

Diane hesitated, before nodding her head. “Do you… do you mind keeping watch for a little while?”

“It’s fine. I napped earlier by mistake, so I am good to go for the night.” When Diane heard that, she moved off to the side, curling up in the ditch where she could conceal most of her body from the eyes of wandering monsters. From her position, it seemed like this was a familiar tactic for her.

She closed her eyes, and I didn’t try to pursue a conversation, simply sitting along the side of the road. Since I was now technically on watch for her, I didn’t go off hunting monsters to train my new skills. If it were Diane the player, I was sure that she could handle anything that arrived, even if she were in a vulnerable state. However, Diane the chosen seemed more innocent.

Instead, I kept both of my skills up and lightly patrolled the area, making sure that there weren’t any monsters approaching where she slept. If I saw an interesting looking herb, I would reach down to pick it up, but otherwise stayed in the vicinity. Unsurprisingly, I managed to get an herbalism skill, my first ‘proficiency’.

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After I had walked the area a few times, I simply sat down on the other side of the road from Diane, wiping down my blade with the remains of my bandana. Now that I thought about it… it was probably my fault that Diane hadn’t gone back to the city. After she bought my sword earlier, and her own starting gear, it’s possible that she didn’t have enough left for an inn room.

When I thought about that, I looked at the skill book that Diane had brought me. A book of this level could sell for at least fifteen silver, right? That would be more than enough to get an inn room, but she had instead traded it to me.

As I thought about that, I noticed that the sun was starting to rise. I heard a faint yawn from across the road, Diane sitting up with a jolt and looking around. When she saw me, she gave a small sigh of relief. “Thank you.” She said in a small voice.

“It’s fine.” I shook my head. “I should be the one apologizing for making you stay out at night.”

“Hm?” Diane blinked. “Ah, n-no. I just… didn’t want to go back by myself. I’m not as good at sneaking as she is.”

I blinked at that. “Ah, I see.” I nodded my head. Right. Given how strong Diane had gotten, there’s no way that she hadn’t gotten other loot to sell by now. Even her gear had been improved from head to toe. She wore a dark purple shirt with a high collar beneath a brown leather jacket and brown pants, using a few belts to ensure that her clothes were fastened tight to her body, maybe to prevent it from rustling and creating extra noise when she walked?

When I looked at Diane’s face again, I found that her expression had hardened, her brows narrowed. She looked at the skill book in my hand passively, her voice level once more. “Why haven’t you learned it?”

I couldn’t help but give an awkward smile. “My negative trait prevents me from using magic. I was going to give it to a friend of mine. Speaking of which, I’m surprised that you didn’t learn it yourself.”

Diane quickly shook her head. “Wanted to try to copy it.”

My eyes widened. “I… see. No offense, but I don’t think that you’ll be able to achieve that. To my knowledge, there’s only ever been one person that has been born with the trait to copy skill books, and he was known as the great scribe. For anyone without that trait, skill books can’t be copied.”

Diane’s brow twitched when she heard that. “I see…” She said in disappointment, pulling herself to her feet and brushing her pants off. “Goodbye, then. Let me know if you get more stealth skills.”

After saying that, she didn’t turn to walk back to the city, but rather kept walking further along the road. I wanted to call out to her and warn her about how far the next village was, but ultimately decided against it. If she could defeat a mutated monster, she was surely strong enough to fight the regular monsters along the road.

As for me… I looked at my skills again, happy to see that I got another level in Sprint, and two more in Sneak while staying watch. As for Herbalism… well, I couldn’t just keep proficiency skills like that up all the time.

I glanced at my friends list, seeing that Nuoda was offline. As such, I sent a message to her chosen. I have a fire magic skill book. Do you or Ennolf need it?

Oh, sorry! Nuoda’s reply came back right away. Ennolf learned basic fire magic after you left yesterday. He said that he thought it would work well with his cooking. As for me, my player doesn’t want to learn offensive spells unless they are the light attribute.

My brow twitched slightly, but I nodded, simply putting the book back in my inventory. I could find the time to sell it later. Now, I was left to think… what other skills did I need to urgently train before I returned? I had Sprint to increase my agility. Ideally, I would like a skill for each of my primary stats, aside from perhaps magic.

I could get the Scholar skill by reading in the library. So that just left… stamina and strength. With a sigh, I got down on the side of the road, and began doing push-ups. The easiest way to get skills involving stats were to actively use those stats. That meant muscle and endurance training.

I didn’t bother counting my push-ups, simply maintaining a steady pace for as long as I could. Once I felt that my arms were giving out, I pushed myself to do five more, before collapsing to recover. Then… I repeated the process once I had fully healed. My stomach was all but screaming at me, but I didn’t have the means to immediately get anything to eat, so I ignored it. After all, I wouldn’t die from hunger.

Near the end of the second round of exercise, I managed to get two skills, Endurance and Brawn. Once I had these, I turned them on and began making my way back to the city. I still had all of my coin from the previous day, so I could afford to get a simple meal for the time being. More importantly, I had enough skills that I could properly hunt once I had something in my stomach.

The closer I got to the city, the more I realized that something had changed. Players were no longer staying in the meadows outside of the city, but had either moved along the road or started to venture into the forest. The fact that they were already moving into the woods meant that their growth had exceeded my expectations. If I wanted to keep up, I would need to step up my game.

As for the book in my inventory… I would save it for when I desperately needed money. It was easy to sell a skill book, but it was much harder to find one to purchase. There was the chance that I would need it to trade in the future.

With that thought in mind, I walked quietly through the gates, the guards never even glancing in my direction. I gave a small smile, thinking that it might be possible to live normally as long as I continue training my Sneak skill, as it prevented people from immediately seeing my brand.