Charlie snickered as his whiskers bounced up and down in rhythm with his laughter. "No, sadly. I have no idea where the gods can be found. I'm happy to see that you're so enthusiastic, though."

Lone slunk back into his seat and furrowed his brow. "Okay, fair enough. I kind of skipped a few questions there. What do you know about the gods then?"

Charlie nodded. "That's definitely a better question, but first, why don't you tell us what you know about them, Lone?"

Lone shrugged. "One's a Golden Foxkin. I know that for sure. There are at least 2 gods but probably more. I can also apparently be saved from death by the Golden Foxkin once, but that's never triggered so I dunno if it's true or not. Beyond that? Pure conjecture. Hence why I got Lipsilk to go find info for me and why I'm trying to get famous to meet powerful people who might know something."

A grin spread across his handsome face. "Seems to have worked, huh?"

John the half steamforged dwarf felt his mouth opening wide in surprise. "Well ah'll be. Clever little cunt, arnae ya?"

The mostly silent tabby cat who had joined in pressuring Lone with its Divine aura purred in contemplation. "I must admit, I assumed you were flailing around the continent like an average baboon. Perhaps you are an above-average baboon."

'Fuck you too,' Lone thought. 'Foxes are definitely better than cats.'

Charlie hadn't expected Lone to know what he did, assuming he was telling the truth. "One of the gods is a Golden Foxkin? You can confirm this? This is incredible information if it is true, Lone. Prove it for me and I will reward you."

Lone raised an eyebrow. He shrugged and gestured to his whole body. "This? The fluffy ears and 9 tails? Yeah, I wasn't born with them. I was a human until a few years ago."

This seemed to pique Pipa's interest. The blurry figure appeared to turn in Lone's direction and it then asked, "What do you mean, exactly? This god changed your species?"

Lone nodded. "The fucker sure did, without my consent, might I add. He said I was compatible with the species and he claimed it was his, so 1 plus 1 equals 2. Cunt even changed my name. I should have come up with something smarter when I was creating my character."

Lone lamented his decision to choose such an edgy name when he had created his character which the god had obviously claimed he had lived through, which gave him the compatibility for the species. "Good thing it wasn't one of those MMOs that hate spaces in names. Imagine if my name was Lone underscore Immortus... Sheesh..."

Everyone at the table wore confused looks. "What on Altros are you babbling on about, Ninetails?" the High Elf Grul'halla asked with little patience.

"A popular pastime," Lone spat back.

Charlie sighed softly. "Lone, please explain in a bit more detail, yes? I can lead you in the right direction to ensure your lover's safety in exchange. We cannot do it ourselves, but there are a few... beings with the knowledge you may require."

Lone immediately turned serious. "I'll quickly explain what video games are then. We, uh, may be here a bit longer than both of us may have first assumed..."

----------------------------------------

"... and yeah, right after I was done teaching for the day and was about to lock-up my classroom, whoosh, everything goes black, I meet Soph for the first time, her god seals her in me, my god gives me five powers, badda bing badda boom, now I'm sat here," Lone said, finishing his explanation.

Bradros clapped. "You're very good at telling a story. I liked the part where you had a panic attack the most."

The brown-furred Umber Bearkin, Alcraz, snorted mockingly. "You like panic attacks. Noted. You always complain about how I do nothing for your birthday. Consider that 'problem' rectified."

"Ah, shit," Bradros replied as he deflated a bit.

'So those two have that kind of dynamic, huh?' Lone thought before he turned his attention to the new blue screen that had shown up in front of his eyes.

The host has developed the passive skill: Storytelling Mastery.

'The fuck? Why now and not when I told stories to Soph, or to Swind, or when I made those books for Eolande or when I entertained the orphan kids with stupid generic stories from Earth?' Lone wondered.

He held his chin and thought, 'Hmm. I'm in a room of some of the continent's most powerful people... Maybe I don't need to conjure up theories for once.'

"Do any of you know the requirements to unlock the Storytelling Mastery skill?" Lone asked the room before he quickly checked the skill's information.

Passive Skill: Storytelling Mastery Increases the host's ability to tell stories in a captivating manner by 5%. Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 1

'Huh. Increase my ability, not the quality of the story. I guess that makes sense upon thinking about it, but you can never be sure what a skill does with how varied they can be. Well, unless they have 'Resistance' in their name,' Lone mocked internally.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The old human whose name Lone still didn't know answered, "What? You do not know something so simple? You merely need to immerse 100 people in stories of your own creation or stories about yourself. Did you just gain that skill? I suppose you should be honoured that the last few needed immersed listeners were Divines and an Ancient. Well, unless you were at 99 and only Brad here was truly enraptured. Hahah-"

"Nah, this was my first time ever telling a story that belonged to me, really. At least one I intended to tell as a story and not as a lesson," Lone interrupted as his mind wanderer to when he had told Soph of his abusive father and his miserable childhood. 'That was a nice heart-to-heart,' Lone thought.

The tabby cat narrowed its eyes in suspicion. "You mean to say you got the skill after only one try? Not even a try, actually. At one coincidence?"

Lone nodded. "Yeah. Happens all the time. I've literally lost count of how many skills I have. I must easily have over a hundred. My new focus now is merging them, actually. That's a little bit harder to do since I have to make the skill myself, but hey, it is what it is."

Almost all eyes fell onto Glenn for verification.

"Is this true, Glenn?" Snow asked incredibly seriously, though everything she said seemed to be serious and tinged with a hint or two of annoyance.

Glenn scratched his cheek as he chuckled. "Well, yeah? I mean, he kept getting hit with dozens of different spells today and he then used those spells right back at the folk who used 'em. Seems pretty cut and dry to me."

Charlie stroked his furry chin in amazement. "Is that the work of a unique skill, Lone?"

"'Course it is. I'm a fuckin' talentless hack without it," Lone said, adding more bitterness to his tone than he had intended.

"Do you mind sharing the skill's details to us, Lone? Again, I promise to reward you. Information of unique skills is rarely public unless the hero in question is very loose-lipped," Charlie requested rather politely.

'I mean, I brag about my unique skills almost daily. I'll take a free reward though,' Lone thought before he nodded dismissively. "Sure. I'll read off its description."

"Thank you. I'm sure we're all eager to hear about such an incredibly powerful skill, as well as to learn of how it restricts you," Charlie replied.

"Try not to be too surprised," Lone muttered before he pulled up the skill's information.

"Ahem, well, here it is; 'A skill unique to the host, Lone Immortus. Grants the host the ability to learn any skill and level them to the highest possible level. Allows the host to learn any non-unique skill directly used on them instantly. Passively makes it easier to grasp all learnable things including those not related to the system. Grants the host the ability to consume some stats from killing, though the host cannot earn stat points through any other means," Lone recited.

Before he could hear the jaws hitting the floor, Lone first added, "That restriction, by the way, it's fuckin' meaningless. Despite being a triple-S-ranker, all of my stats are over 10,000 except Luck. Vitality is nearly at 30,000 while Luck is at a little over 1,000."

"What... H-Ho-"

"Also... It has another kind of secret function," Lone interrupted the old-looking human. "It lets me identify when a person is wielding their personal ideal weapon and armour. Hence why I don't wear real armour and use my bones instead and also why I use a swordspear. I can technically use anything and learn the relative skills but I still perform better in my ideal armour or while using my ideal weapon. Neat trick, right?"

The High Elf arched her brows in displeasure. "Impossible. There is no way for a unique skill to exist which has such a... such a quite clearly beneficial restriction."

"... Wait." Charlie could see that several of the other seated members were about to speak out as well, Snow in particular. "You said the Golden Foxkin god gave you five skills, did he not? Can you detail the restrictions of them as well?"

Lone smirked. "You're smart. Sure. You just heard about Growth Accelerator. Basic Regeneration - now Regeneration, yeah, I evolved it - has no restrictions at all, really. Well, it's a passive skill but it has a mana cost to boost it. Maybe its full power is being restricted behind an MP paywall of sorts?"

"That is, quite frankly, impossible," Snow said disapprovingly. "That is not a restriction. You must be lying. Does it perhaps consume your lifespan to heal you as it does?"

Lone shrugged. "Believe what you want. Moving on..."

"No," Snow interrupted. "Explain yourself."

Lone sighed. "Look, I don't give a fuck if you trust what I'm saying is the truth or not. You want proof? I'll cut my hand off right here and now and cover this table in blood which Fangs over there will probably suck up if it proves that I'm not wasting my lifespan or anything. Unless you think I'm dumb enough to do something like that to prove a point, and if so, go fuck yourself. I'm answering the Ancient bipedal rat asking the questions, not you."

Dante the vampire nodded rather excitedly. "I'll be sure to clean up every drop. I knew I liked you."

Charlie frowned something fierce. "Snow, be silent. Everyone, be silent. The next person to question him who isn't called 'Charlie' will be on toilet cleaning duty for the next decade."

Everyone paled or straightened their posture, even Glenn who has no intentions to speak any further during the meeting anyway.

The palace had over a hundred bathrooms and it was usually Frappy's job to clean then on a daily basis, but he actually has the skills to do that with ease. Everyone sat at this table would require a full day just to clean half of the palace's toilets, let alone all of them.

Going against the orders of their leader was out of the question now, considering what was at stake.

"Go ahead, Lone. I really am sorry for all of this negativity. We're the ones here who are meant to be selling a pitch to you and yet most of us have been silent or hostile in intent," Charlie lamented in apology.

Lone shrugged dismissively. "Like their opinions matter. You're the Ancient, not them. You seem decent enough. Anyway, I imagine you want me to go on?"

"Please," Charlie answered.

"Sure. Well, next is my species. It's not really a skill but the god used up one of my unique skill slots on it. It's allowed me to capture Primals thus far so I guess it's a boon. It also has no restrictions really beyond social ones which don't really matter anymore given how strong I am," Lone explained.

"After that is The Summoning Room. It's an impenetrable pocket dimension that very few people, if anyone, can detect. Even Divine Rend had no idea that I'd returned Soph to it. Only people I have a special contract with can enter it, and once there, they can see my actions through a screen. I can also communicate with the contracted individuals telepathically at any time regardless of distance or my or their status, I.E, being in an enchantment that blocks telepathy or magic or something." Lone tapped his chin in thought.

"Right. I can bring items into the summoning room via the people contracted but I can't actually enter the room myself. Quite a few restrictions on that one. To spell them out, me not being able to enter it and someone requiring that special contract to gain access," Lone added.

"Finally we come to Creation Magic," Lone said. "It's as simple as it sounds. If it exists or can exist on Altros, I can create it. It costs MP to do this and the prices can get very costly. I'm talking hundreds of millions of MP. If I use more MP than I can supply then my mana organs shut down and I can't use MP for a certain amount of time depending on how much I overshot by. I'm still figuring out the kinks on that one but it's very useful."

He took out his lexicon from his Dimensional Storage and showed it off while he also grabbed the icosahedron at his waist. "It let me create this - a cube that can store spells and also triple the power of any spell channelled through it. It's bound to me and will teleport back to me if lost."

Lone immediately put the lexicon back into his storage skill since it was destructible and he didn't really trust these people not to try to steal it and damage it in the process if they believed him.

The half-machine dwarf gave Lone a look that sent a chill up his spine which made up for more than half of the reason he'd stashed the cube away so quickly.

"This, on the other hand," Lone said as he drew attention to the partially blue many-sided ball, "Is a mana orb that will never break. It can store up to 200,000,000MP and can only be used by me and people I allow to use it."

He raised his eyes and asked, "Any questions?"