After spending a good 20 minutes mulling over which magic type to focus on, Lone had finally made his mind up.
"Yup. It's gotta be lightning magic, right? It's the only one not of the four basic elements. Plus, who can resist the call of the Dark Side?" he chuckled.
“The Dark Side?” Soph asked as she peered over the helm’s railing down at him.
He smiled at her. “Unlimited power, young padawan.”
She frowned. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Haha, I’m not trying to,” he countered. “Anyway, I’m gonna practice some magic now so let me know if I somehow fuck up the ship.”
Soph nodded. “Be careful.”
“I will try.” He got up and walked over to the lower deck's railing.
"So I just have to want to cast the spell to use it right? I have no clue how this’ll compare to Illusionary Dome since that isn’t crude," he mumbled as he stroked his chin.
Lone then tried to cast Crude Lightning Bolt. Immediately, unknown words of power began flowing out of his mouth. His eyes widened in shock while his body practically vibrated with glee.
While he was brimming with joy, however, he could feel his MP slowly draining. Likely to fill the words he was spewing with the 5,000 MP needed to cast the spell.
A few minutes passed before he was finally done with the chanting. Far longer than it had taken the goblins, he noticed.
That told Lone that rank-ups in the skill likely resulted in casting times going down somehow. ‘Probably by needing fewer magical lines to be chanted.’
Regardless, a sleek bolt of black lightning zipped out of his hand. It was small and didn't look very powerful. A far cry from the bolt the goblin he had got the skill from possessed.
It weakly hit the ocean and fizzled out after a few seconds. It was, needless to say, pretty disappointing.
"Huh. I know it was crude, but that was far less impressive than I thought it'd be-"
At that moment, roughly 30 fishes of varying sizes all bobbed to the surface. They were charred and all clearly dead. Very, very dead.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 3.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 6.
Congratulations! The host’s active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 7.
Lone frowned deeply even if he actually wanted to smile. "I really wish I would only get one notification telling me it went from level one to level seven instead of giving me one for each individual level-up."
He sighed and flopped down into a cross-legged position. "I guess it makes sense since the skill levelled up six times separately just really quickly. It didn’t gain six levels just because I used it once, but boy is it a bit of an eyesore..."
After he was satisfied with his complaining, a big fat grin spread across his lips. "So, because the skill's shit, it levelled up six times with just 30 or so normal fish? Good to know using it to hunt is an effective method to level it. Maybe I can max it out? What will happen then? Will it become a higher variant of the skill? Just Lightning Bolt, maybe? I could always just be stuck with a strong yet ultimately shit skill…"
Lone's blood was boiling with anticipation.
----------------------------------------
'Hey, Soph. Give us control for a moment, please,' Sophie requested surprisingly politely.
Soph scowled. 'No. You're going to bully him for talking to himself, aren't you? I know you don’t like it when he does that.'
A heavy sigh could be heard in her head. 'We promise we will not. We have a suggestion for him to make his magic training more efficient.'
Soph was reluctant, but in the end, she stopped fighting it and gave control to her other personality.
"Lone," Sophie called to get his attention.
"Hmm?" Clearly noticing the sharper look on her face, the man squinted his eyes at her. "Sophie?"
She nodded before saying, "You should jump in the water and hit yourself with the magic. Will that not increase your Lightning Magic Resistance, Physical Pain Resistance, and Basic Regeneration also?"
Lone slowly nodded his head after he spent a second to think the suggestion over. "You're right... I'll need you or Soph on standby though to fish me out if I start sinking. I don't know if I'll be able to stay afloat when my nerves are being fried."
Sophie smiled. "Do not worry. We shall save you. This should be a good way to kill time and train our Teleportation at the same time. Watching Soph focus so much on sailing is endearing if not very boring."
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Two days passed in a flash and finally, land was on the horizon, and it was only the morning of the second day since they'd changed their course on Snapper’s suggestion.
The frog woman had been weird and incredibly suspicious, but she hadn’t lied when she’d given them directions.
Due to their imminent need to find a port of some sort, Lone decided to check his gains from his lightning magic training as a way to pass the time before then.
He’d been training a bit too hard on Sophie’s suggestion. He had a feeling she got a kick out of seeing him electrocute himself.
Still, their bond was growing deeper, and he could slowly see the cracks forming on her extremely durable shell.
Passive Skill: Lightning Magic Resistance
A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Lightning Magic.
Lightning Magic used on the host will be weakened by 5%.
Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 8 [Up by 7 levels]
Lone was a bit disappointed that the skill hadn't reached intermediate rank yet, in truth. He had sort of expected that though.
Lightning Magic Resistance was a far broader skill than Crude Lightning Bolt was.
After all, it dampened the effects of all lightning magic, not just the weak crude skill he had effectively stolen from a goblin, of all beings.
If anything, he should be thankful, he felt. The resistance could help him against a theoretical lightning god. He had no rights to be sullen.
On the topic of his lightning magic, however, he had improved vastly in the past two days.
Active Lightning Magic Skill: Crude Lightning Bolt
An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Lightning Bolt] Lightning Magic skill.
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Due to its crudeness, 25 [-75] lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.
[New!] The bolt's thickness and speed have been increased by 1.25 times its norm.
The MP cost to invoke this skill is slightly [down from substantially] increased due to its inherent flaws.
Cost: 1,250 MP [-3,750 MP] Mastery: Expert Level 7 [Up by 36 levels]
It was no wonder to him any longer why the magic of the goblins seemed so powerful.
It had only taken him two days to reach such a high level of mastery. Surely the goblins who had weeks, months, or even years, to work on the skill were able to reach similar levels of power.
‘Truly crude,’ Lone thought.
He was very happy with the skill's progress. At intermediate rank, the MP cost was halved from 5,000 to 2,500.
At advanced, the MP cost was halved once again to its current amount.
Only once it had reached the expert rank, however, did it truly start to shine. The needed ancient lines for chanting the spell were cut down dramatically and the new effect was added.
He was surprised that the skill continued to rank up even though he was only killing fishes and the occasional marine life monster with it.
Lone assumed this was due to how weak the skill was, but his inner-magic-lover was still very pleased regardless.
Passive Skill: Physical Pain Resistance
A skill that allows the host to resist physical pains while still being aware of their existence.
All physical pain shall be weakened by 30%.
Cost: N/A Mastery: Advanced Level 4 [Up by 3 levels]
He was glad that Physical Pain Resistance had levelled up despite him being the one inflicting the pain.
It hadn’t gone up by much, of course. The lightning tended to cripple his pain receptors fairly quickly, but progress was progress nonetheless.
Unique Skill: Basic Regeneration
A skill unique to the host, Lone Immortus.
Grants the host the ability to passively heal injuries at a fast [up from moderate] rate. The healing rate can be increased in exchange for mana.
Cost: 30 MP [-10 MP] (per second per 1% increase in healing rate) Mastery: Advanced Level 1 [Up by 1 level]
While it was only a single level, it was still enough to push the skill over the edge and rank it up.
Now with this having improved some more, Lone felt far more confident when it came to combat.
Assuming goblins were the bottom of the barrel when it came to the monsters of this world, then Lone was in desperate need of more powerful skills and he also needed to upgrade his existing ones as quickly as possible.
In the past two days, Lone had also tried to upgrade his Bone Armour with the help of Sophie, but the system still wasn't letting the skill budge past expert level one, it would seem.
On a brighter note, one of his random skills had also ranked up unintentionally.
Passive skill: Swimming Mastery
A skill that allows the host to swim with less effort and with more grace.
Swimming consumes 15% [+10%] less SP and the host will find it 15% [+10%] easier to read the waves while swimming.
Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 3 [Up by 12 levels]
Honestly, Lone was torn between ignoring the skill and putting his entire heart into mastering it.
He was a pretty natural swimmer even before becoming a nine-tailed foxkin, so the latter option was somewhat appealing to him.
Hell, as far as Lone knew, the skill could let him breathe underwater at a high enough rank.
Still, he decided to shelve it for now. Of course, he was planning to research as much as he could about his non-combat-oriented skills just as much as he was about his combat-oriented ones. He would be a fool not to.
He just felt it wasn’t ideal to take up a hobby like swimming until he and Sofia could be sure they were in a safe environment where they could act so relaxed.
The elves had offered insight that was invaluable. Humans seemed to be detested by them as habitual slavers of non-humans, enough so that it was odd to them that Sofia was also a former slave.
At least, that’s the impression Lone got. Caution first, messing around with unnecessary skills second.
Now that he'd checked his skills, Lone felt like checking on his status. He called upon the system to show him his gains from when he'd started using the Crude Lightning Bolt up until now.
Status
Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 24 Level: 49 Species: Foxkin Rank: H Race: Golden Foxkin HP: 4,620/4,620 [+120] SP: 10,356/11,130 [+70] MP: 860/12,110 [+210] Basic Stats Strength: 320 [+10] Vigour: 1,113 [+7] Dexterity: 466 [+21] Agility: 363 [+30] Vitality: 462 [+12] Luck: 64 [+1] Bonus Stats Charm: 77 Charisma: 46 Magic Power: 1,211 [+21]
"So few points for killing hundreds of fishes and maybe a dozen little sea monsters..." Lone muttered under his breath.
Of course, he was happy that's he'd gained any stats at all since his current running theory was that he shouldn't be getting any until he'd ranked up.
Soph wasn’t gaining a single thing from his kills. All she had earned the last two days was a level-up in Sailing mastery. Not even a single point in her Magic Power or any other stat either.
Lone saw that this meant he could infinitely farm stat points even if he couldn’t rank up, unlike normal people. Honestly, he knew his Growth Accelerator was truly far too broken.
Still, even with that in mind, he was a bit disappointed at how few points he'd absorbed from his prey.
"Lone!" Soph’s serious voice called loudly, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Looking up at her, he replied, "Something wrong?"
She really had shed out of her ignorant shell a lot and was showing how mature and collected she could be when she truly focused.
It was also honestly kind of challenging to see who was in control when she was serious like this. Still, he found that challenge fun. He loved both sides of Sofia so he was determined to be able to identify who was in control in a split second, regardless of the circumstances.
Soph nodded tensely. "There's a massive ship approaching us. They're dead ahead. I can feel 53 people on board. One has a lot of mana. They feel like humans, I think? Their mana has a lot of different colours though it feels kind of like my own."
Lone cracked his neck and clambered up onto his feet. Indeed. He could see a large galleon roughly 150 metres in front of their ship.
"Okay. Gimme the wheel. Same rules as with that Snapper person though with less oddness this time, hopefully. I'm the stand-in slave who's talking on behalf of my mute and blind master, 'kay?" he asked.
Soph nodded and stepped aside, letting him take the wheel as soon as he'd walked up to the ship's upper deck. "I'll give control to Sophie. She's better at acting than I am."
Lone nodded. "Okay."
Within a moment, Soph had given over control. Her body then grew. Sophie then walked down to the lower deck and sat herself down on a recliner. She was the very picture of nonchalance and her aura just screamed 'I am severely lacking in the anxiety department'.
Lone was a bit sorry for Soph since the second he touched the ship's wheel, he had levelled the Sailing Mastery skill, but his mind was too busy to be apologetic to his lover for now.
Congratulations! The host’s passive skill [Sailing Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.
He ignored the notification and instead thought, 'It's time for you two to earn your keep, Acting and Persuasion.'