Hazel had lost focus. In truth, she found it to be extremely draining preventing her unique skill from working passively and it had exhausted her almost entirely doing so.

Each minute that she suppressed the skill, the higher the pressure on her mind grew, to the point she slipped and the thoughts of those around her become audible once more.

'Lone used tae teach these little shits?' the dwarven man thought as he spoke to Scott.

Meanwhile, the blonde-haired woman was in a world of her own. 'I'm glad he's doing what we wanted, right, Sophie? He isn't holding back anymore! it's so exciting.'

'Of course he's listening to us. He values our opinion. It only took a handful of near-death experiences to hammer it in that we were, of course, correct.'

And it went without saying that Hazel couldn't forget about the timid foxkin girl who was standing in the corner hugging her four tails, trying her best to not stand out. 'Maybe I should slip into the shadows... I can almost control that skill now...'

Hazel sighed internally. 'What a weird group. I wonder if Darren finds it tough to suppress his passive skills too? He didn't struggle when he... when he c-cut off his finger, so I dunno...'

"So yeah, the bastard can pack ah punch an' cockroaches like nae one else ah've ever seen," Hamish finished explaining his honour duel against her brother to her friend, Scott.

"That sounds like such a broken skill. I bet it's unique," Scott commented.

Hazel had tuned out of the actual conversation a while ago, instead focusing on the thoughts flying around the seven other people present, but that little exchange had caught her attention.

'They're talking about his ability to regrow his finger? It was very powerful and if he was also summoned, then he must have a unique skill like we do, right?' she thought.

Suddenly, a thought more powerful than any other she had heard entered Hazel's mind, coming from Soph.

'Great job! I was watching through Mana Sensing. Although... I don't think you should have used Wide Taunt near the end there. It would have been safer to keep going group by group.'

'We agree wholeheartedly. You should praise him regardless for not holding back. Using Survivor's Speed was a risk, but considering Basic Regeneration's recent improvements, we can consent to the lifting of the ban we had placed on its training. Let him know we think he should take out a body or two to shock these children. The fact they are not already dead makes me suspect they have similar Luck stats as we do. They need a reality check.'

'Got it.'

'If you're sure, Lone. Sophie and I are just worried for you, though we both agree you did much better than usual! Uh, Sophie thinks you should let your sister see some of the exile's corpses. Reality check or something? I don't really understand. Yeah. Uh, no, no new skill unsealed. Yeah, you're right. It's probably every two ranks. B-rank, here we come!'

Hazel was frozen in confusion. 'Is she... talking to Darren telepathically or something?'

"We can go in now," Soph suddenly said, interrupting the conversation going on between Scott and Hamish.

Emma asked, "How do you know?"

Soph smiled proudly. "Lone told me! We can talk to each other mentally no matter the distance. It's super useful."

Alisa cocked her head to the side. "Is that his unique skill?"

Soph put a finger on her chin and tilted her head. Hazel had to admit that it was adorable despite her ethereal beauty that should have led every one of her actions to be more graceful.

"Kind of? He'll explain when we meet up with him. Uh, none of you is squeamish to blood, right?" Soph asked a bit randomly.

Scott and Emma said they were fine with blood and gore but Alisa and George paled a bit at the question.

Hazel frowned. "A bit, why?"

"You guys really are super innocent," the short woman sighed. "Well, just follow me, I guess. I'll take you guys to Lone."

Hamish grumbled, "Ah could do 'at tae. 'E feckin' stinks at hidin' 'is presence."

Soph surprised Hazel by sticking her tongue out at the dwarven man before saying, "Anything you can do, I can do better."

"Ye keep believin' at," Hamish said with a shake of the head. "Grats on the rank up by the by. Just get enlightened?"

Soph giggled. "Of course not. I don't need enlightenment, Lone does."

Hamish furrowed his brow at that but didn't ask a follow-up question.

'And this girl is meant to be my brother's... what, master? Girlfriend? Just a close friend? The reports in Milindo were unclear and she isn't thinking about her relationship with him. How can he talk to only her telepathically and no one else? Should I ask some questions to pry out an answer?' While tempting, Hazel's thought was soon forgotten when the smell of iron and something rotten hit her nose.

At her side, Alisa gagged as she covered her mouth. "So... much... blood."

Hamish chuckled. "Well, aye. Fae the looks ah things, Lone cut their 'eads clean off. Ah quick an' nigh guaranteed death, aye, but messy as feck even if 'e took care ah the bodies as fast as reasonably possible."

"Why is it black?" Scott asked mostly rhetorically.

Hamish shrugged. "The Deep does strange things tae those 'at fall intae its grasp. Dinna touch it, aye? Don't want tae go insane anaw."

"Y-Yeah," Scott replied before he leaned towards George. "It can do that? Spread insanity?"

His fellow teenage boy reddened in the cheeks. "H-How would I know?! I've never left Ranton before meeting you guys, let alone Milindo!"

Hazel ignored her male friends. She was too busy feeling her lips tremble upon seeing the thoughts flashing through the dwarven man's head. He was busy recounting all of the times he'd killed another person and it was... gruesome, to say the least.

She did, however, learn that he was over a hundred years old, but that hardly distracted her from the danger she now felt she was in. It didn't help that his next set of thoughts revealed to her that he was incredibly wary and almost afraid of the black blood that covered the streets despite his nonchalant attitude.

Her eyes wandered away from said streets and ended up on the young foxkin girl with four purple-tipped red tails.

'I need to get stronger,' the foxkin thought to herself. 'I may be an F-ranker, but Master Lone is only a D-ranker- ah, a, uh, C-ranker now, right? Since Mistress Soph ranked up... I didn't know they ranked up together... The gap will only widen between us at this rate. I can't keep being such a burden...'

Hazel furrowed her brow. There was a lot to unpack there. She returned her focus to the floor to make sure she didn't step in any of the black blood as her mind spun.

'She calls them master and mistress? Is she a slave? But Darren always hated discrimination. There's no way he'd own a slave... And she's an F-ranker? So she's stronger than we are? What does she use to fight? I don't see any weapons on her. Maybe she uses magic?' Hazel's thoughts distracted her long enough that before she knew it, she and her friends had been led straight to her brother.

He was clad head to toe in an ominous-looking armour that made him resemble a death knight of some sort. He was sitting atop a pristine leather chair in the middle of a road that appeared to have been newly painted, so covered in black blood was it.

It was as if a massacre had taken place here, which Hazel reckoned wasn't far from the truth.

A small ball of red blood was slowly rotating around her brother's head while he read a tattered book of some sort.

Soph skipped up to his side nimbly, avoiding all the blood on the ground, and leaned over the chair he was in to peek at the book in his armoured hand. "What's this?"

"Hmm?" Her brother raised his head and somehow his horrific helmet disappeared into his flesh as if it had gone dormant just beneath his skin. "It's the diary from the exiles. None of them would talk to me beyond senseless screaming or insane ramblings, but I did want to know if they had documented the process of them being corrupted by the Deep. Was it instant? Was it gradual? Did they look for a cure? That kinda thing. Thankfully, this happened to be tucked in the breast pocket of one of them. Maybe the leader? Dunno. I killed them all so fast I couldn't tell who was the strongest."

'He was able to kill A and S-ranker so fast?' Hazel felt sick. 'How can he talk about killing so many people so... so emotionlessly?'

Unconsciously, her Mind Reading tried to worm its way into her brother's mind to reveal its secrets unto her only to be stopped by the same block from before - these locks he had spoken about, presumably.

He turned his head towards her slowly and stared right into her eyes. Irritation and hints of anger clear in his gaze, he commanded, "Stop it, now."

Hazel winced. "I-I'm trying, but it's exhausting. I lost focus."

His expression softened as he sighed. "That's fair. Tell me what your unique skill is then. All three of you. We've got plenty of time to talk now."

Hamish effortlessly traversed the street without touching a drop of blood. The dwarf reached her brother and Soph before asking, "They're all summoned 'eroes?"

Lone shook his head and pointed at Hazel, Scott, and then Alisa. "Just those three. They were students back on Earth when I was just a teacher. Hazel's also my little sister, as we established earlier."

'He recognises us? I... I didn't expect that considering how much the whole class teased him... Shouldn't he hate us? Still, he seems so knowledgeable. I wonder if he knows how to get back home?'

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'Arrogant bastard lookin' like a dark lord over there on his leather armchair... Could I punch him and get away with it? Probably not.'

Hazel tried to pay no mind to Alisa and Scott's thoughts.

"Ah, 'at makes sense. Anythin' interestin' in 'at journal?" the dwarf asked.

Her brother nodded. "Seems the exiles here were a collection of mercenary groups that got corrupted by 'the Deep'. Each entry is pretty normal until they went on a certain expedition together, and fell down a hole that opened up in the Farwinds - doesn't say where exactly - at which point they all slowly started losing their rationality. The entries past this point," he said as he thumbed at the pages, "become more and more of a rambling mess."

Hamish wore a saddened expression. "Aye. The Deepwinds. Word ah advice? Never go near 'em."

Lone scoffed. "I'm not an idiot. I've probably read up on more insane and dangerous shit than you have even if you're, what, a thousand years older than me?"

The dwarf tossed a pebble at him which scared Hazel half to death considering it made a sharp whizzing noise as it passed through the air. "Go feck yerself, cheeky git. Ah've only ah hoondred or so more summers than ya."

"Bah," Lone scoffed as he caught the stone and dropped it onto the floor effortlessly. "You've never even seen the sun before. You wouldn't know summer from winter even if your life depended on it."

Hamish raised a finger to protest before pausing and then lowering it. "Fair point."

"Heh," Lone - as her brother now liked to go by - laughed. "Go do something else now if you're just gonna distract me. Hazel, Scott, Alisa, tell me what your unique skills are."

Hamish shrugged. "Well, if we're stayin' 'ere fae the night, then ah'm gonna find ah decent hoose tae make an 'ome fae the evenin'. Ye can deal wae lunch, ah'll 'andle dinner."

Scott stepped forward, far less anger and much more fear clouding his mind this time. "Why should we tell you anything? Y-You killed over a hundred people just so we could talk in an abandoned town."

'I have to agree,' Hazel thought.

'What's wrong with that?' she heard Emma wonder. 'People die all the time. From the sounds of things, the demihumans living here were criminals and insane. Seems fair to kill them to me.'

George's thoughts were strikingly similar. 'You really shouldn't be antagonising him, Scott. He's clearly very powerful and very in the right, so trying to vilify him won't do us any favours...'

"Urd, not town, and over a hundred maniacs corrupted by a force even I don't understand, and I'm the vessel of three gods for fuck's sake," Lone sighed.

'What? Three what? What the fuck does that mean?!' Hazel so very desperately wanted access to his mind now after that bombshell was so casually dropped.

She could also tell that he was far more frustrated by the fact that he lacked knowledge on whatever the Deepwinds were than he was at the fact it had apparently turned well over a hundred dwarves crazy enough to apparently merit him killing them all in cold blood.

"Hazel, seriously, I just rebuilt those locks. Focus on suppressing your skill or describe what it does to me. I won't tell you again," her brother warned in a serious tone.

"D-Don't speak to her like that!" Alisa spoke up. "She's your sister, isn't she? You should be a bit warmer to her, not like..., well, like this."

Lone stared at the short girl long and hard. "I've been through too much to be nice, but I'll concede a bit. Soph and I will go first, then you three. That's fair, isn't it? Knowledge on unique skills for knowledge on unique skills."

'Urg, I feel like a third wheel here,' Hazel heard Emma think.

Not a moment sooner, George's mental musings entered her head too and they sounded a lot like Scott's. 'He looks like a warlord. Replace that leather armchair with a throne of bones and I'd believe you if you told me he was some powerful flesh-wearing lich king or something.'

Meanwhile, Alisa and Scott had shared a look before nodding.

"Okay," Scott said. "That's fair. What's your unique skill then?"

Hazel watched as her brother went on to repeat the same demonstration he'd used to teach her passive skills could be stopped.

His left gauntlet receded into his hand and he then simply cut off a finger, allowing it to regrow. Hazel had seen this before but even if the display didn't make her sick to her stomach, the sound of it healing sure did.

Alisa and George both threw up onto the blood-covered street while Scott looked fascinated. Emma was just as entranced as he was to see Lone regrow a finger almost instantly.

Soph pouted. "It's not that disgusting."

Lone actually laughed at that. His chuckling at the short woman's words was the most human thing Hazel had seen him do since they'd entered the little abandoned dwarven town, and that frightened her more than it comforted her.

"It's a skill called Basic Regeneration. It makes me effectively immortal. Its subskill is called Bone Armour, which is what you see me wearing. I can adjust it as I see fit and each time it gets damaged or destroyed it gets stronger," Lone explained.

Hazel's expression morphed into one of surprise. "Subskill? What's that?"

Lone smiled at her, apparently happy to have received the question. "It's essentially an additional effect so powerful or individual that it becomes a skill of its own. That's what I've figured out so far, at least. If you don't know what additional effects are, well, to summarise, you can permanently make a skill stronger by fulfilling certain conditions. Most skills get an additional effect at either advanced rank or expert rank automatically too."

"That's actually really awesome," Scott muttered. "So, uh, what's her unique skill?"

Lone laughed again, why, Hazel didn't know as she couldn't access his mind yet. The answer came to her when she read Soph's mind instead.

'This is gonna be so funny when he tells them about the other skills!'

'Really? This is boring and a waste of time. We should be discussing our stat changes and our auras now that we and Lone have hit C-rank.'

Unintentionally Hazel said, "You have more than one unique skill?"

She wanted to kick herself when she saw Soph eyeing her suspiciously.

Lone narrowed his eyes too. "Yes, I do. I have seven, eight if you count me changing species as a unique skill, and I can create two more unique skills should I wish to though I've yet needed to, thankfully. Soph has ten unique skills, but can only use five of them as of right now."

Hazel listened as her own words failed her while her brother went on to detail the other six unique skills he owned and Soph's five currently available unique skills.

The two that shocked her the most were his Creation Magic and her Minor Time Control. It frightened her how powerful such skills could be if used properly.

Could he create guns? Has he already? Could he make a portal? Portals can clearly exist on Altros if Alisa's unique skill was anything to go off of, so could he magic up one that leads straight back to Scotland's Arlith?

What about Soph? Minor Time Control was anything but minor. Its penalty was great, but so was the potential. She could save lives with a two-hour warning. Many, many lives given how dangerous this world was.

"And now your turn, kids," Lone said as he winced. "Be quick. You're almost through the final lock again, Hazel."

"Uh," Alisa hesitated but then said, "My unique skill is called Rift Summoning. I can make a massive spatial rift appear once a month that will teleport anyone who walks through it to a random spot."

Lone stroked his chin in thought. "With the correct subskills or additional effects, that could be an amazing skill. I suggest using it every time it's off cooldown because right now, a random teleport isn't very useful. Some friends of mine got randomly teleported over an ocean by a Djinn. Nasty business. When you use the skill, try to visualise its exact destination and try to split it, to make several rifts. Try to make smaller rifts too. If you can earn the right effect, you could make yourself a weapon that teleports your enemies' body parts, well, away."

Hazel almost reached up to grab her head when a sudden stream of hate-filled thoughts entered her mind.

'I'll kill that cloud freak if we ever meet him again! I'll rip his eyes out of his head and eat them, savouring every second as he squirms in anguish! The Djinn will suffer for what it did to Lone! It will burn, it will bleed, it will die!'

'Ha-ah, calm down Sophie. Yes, yes, we'll kill the stupid Djinn, but you really need to stop getting so upset when it or Sir Ardus get mentioned.'

'That man is no sir! Do not get me started, Soph!'

"T-That's morbid," Alisa whispered but she did end up nodding, clearly happy at receiving the advice.

Meanwhile, Hazel was trying her best to not break down crying after having such a massive influx of raw negative emotions wash over her.

Scott stepped forward, his mind - a lovely distraction - telling Hazel how excited he was to receive some guidance on how to advance his own unique skill.

"Mine's called Beginner Booster," he said. "I can double any one person's stats permanently, but I can only choose one target, it can only be used once a week, I can change the target if I choose to do that but the old target loses the boost, and, well, it doesn't really help me at all. Uh, it does prevent the person I boosted from trying to harm me in any way at all though which is pretty fuckin' nice."

Lone's eyes brightened. "Is it usable right now?"

Scott shook his head. "It's on Emma right now since she's our strongest member. It was on Alisa for ages since she has the highest Luck and we figured it'd be smart to boost that. Y'know? Keep bad encounters down and all that bullshit. Was only able to change it after we had a talk about it the other day in Golden Pass City. I can't use it for another three days."

The former noble girl giggled as she held her neck. "It's pretty nice."

"I can only imagine." Lone closed his eyes in contemplation before nodding. "I would suggest trying to forcefully use it on yourself, though that could be dangerous without a healer on standby. I'd bet a ruby-gold coin you can earn an additional effect or subskill that gives you a weaker version of the skill or a warped version of it like my Bone Armour. Also, try to use it on multiple people or try to overload the effect to give a bigger boost than just double. With its name being Beginner, I'd assume it can evolve once it hits master-rank-ten."

"Skills can evolve?" George asked, apparently unaware of that fact.

Hazel was curious too. Her own unique skill had levels despite being passive. It was only at beginner-level-five, but still, the thought of it getting stronger both excited and terrified her.

'It's rare meeting people more ignorant than us, huh?' Soph thought.

'We suppose,' her other supposed personality replied, now much calmer. 'It is a boon that Lone studies skills so much even if his addiction is worrying.'

Hazel's eyebrow shot up. 'Darren is addicted to skills? What does that mean? Earning them? Levelling them? Researching them? That seems kinda important.'

"I've evolved a few magic skills before," Lone confirmed. "An example would be Crude Lightning Bolt to Lightning Bolt. Granted, I haven't confirmed if unique skills can evolve but my Basic Regeneration is at the master rank and has levels left to go, so the implications are there not even factoring in the 'basic' in the name."

"You're a lightning mage too?" Emma asked in excitement. She was a lightning mage herself, after all.

Her magic impressed Hazel a lot. She had yet to earn a single skill herself that was of any use besides Laundry Mastery, but that hardly helped in battle like lightning magic did. It was enchanting, to say the least.

Lone shook his head. "No, though I will be again in the future. I created something far out of my MP's range and had my mana points sealed for a little over a year. Anyway, Hazel. Your skill?"

Suddenly she felt nervous even if she knew exactly what to say here. There was no way in hell she would tell the truth. Not with her friends being present, that was for sure. She'd read enough books to know the ability to read minds was nothing but a ticking timebomb for an utter social disaster.

"I can sense emotions. It's passive and, uh, well, the only restriction I thought it had was that I couldn't turn it off, but, em, you proved that wrong so..." Hazel said.

She gulped unintentionally when something in his eyes shifted. She knew that look. He didn't trust her at all, and knowing that put a sinking feeling in her gut.

"I see. The best advice I can give for a skill like that is to try to broaden the scope of the sense itself. Soph's insights into Mana Sensing could be helpful. She used to use that skill to see the world before I restored her sight," he said.

"You did what?" Alisa asked in a mixture of shock and awe.

Lone waved her question off. "It's what fucked over my MP. Anyway, I guess it's fine if you break my final lock, Hazel. It was a good workout trying to stop you if nothing else."

'He... does trust me? But that look...' Hazel didn't know what to think.

It was at that moment that she finally connected to her brother's thoughts for the first time.

'Mind reading, huh? I would have lied about it too in your situation given the implications. We'll discuss this later. As for serious advice on your skill, try your best to not brush up against mental defences in the future as it could easily get you killed. Learn how to identify such things without letting their owners realise you're passively trying to root around in their heads,' her brother thought, scaring her to her core.

His next set of thoughts baffled her so much she had to do a double take.

'One plus zero is one. One plus one is two. One plus two is three. One plus three is four. One plus four is five. One plus five is six. One plus six is seven. One plus seven is eight. One plus eight is nine. One plus nine is ten. Two plus zero is two. Two plus one is three. Two plus two is four. Two plus...'

It took a second but she quickly guessed that he was masking his true thoughts under the guise of these much more mundane mental musings. Him having the mental focus to do this and just the fact that it was working spooked her immensely.

'H-How can he so easily do that?' Hazel wondered. 'C-Can he teach Emma, George, Scott, and Alisa, how to do it too? No, more importantly, how did he find out? Does he have a skill that can detect lies from truths?'

Lone got up and cracked his neck. "Find a building and make yourselves comfy. I've got system-related stuff to do. After that, we'll have lunch. We'll talk a bit less seriously while we eat it, maybe do a bit of training, then Soph'll take you back to Golden Pass City."

His tone was that of no-nonsense, and honestly, Hazel was quite happy to find somewhere to lie down and process everything that had just happened.