After spending slightly more than twenty minutes mulling over which magic type to focus on, Lone had finally made his decision. "Yup. It's gotta be lightning magic, right? It's the only one not of the four basic elements."
He got up and walked over to the lower deck's railing. "So I just have to want to cast the spell?" As soon as Lone had said that, unknown words of power began flowing out of his mouth. His eyes widened in shock while his body practically vibrated with glee.
As she was manning the ship's wheel, Soph smiled warmly while she gazed at Lone. 'He's having so much fun... I'm happy that's he's happy...' A second passed before Sophie retorted, 'He's weird. The wind is on our side due to our luck, so we should be training his swordspearmanship right now, not some silly magic that's incredibly inefficient.'
Soph's smile simply turned wry and she chose to not verbalise her response to her other self.
A few minutes had passed before Lone's chanting was finished. As soon as it was, a sleek bolt of black lightning zipped out of his hand. It was small and didn't look very powerful. It weakly hit the ocean and fizzled out after a few seconds.
"Huh. I know it was crude, but that was far less impressive than I thought it'd be-"
At that moment, roughly thirty 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.
Congratulations! the host's active lightning magic skill [Crude Lightning Bolt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 8.
Lone frowned deeply even if he wanted to smile. "I really wish these messages would just tell me it went from level one to level eight instead of each level."
He sighed and flopped down into a cross-legged position. "I guess it makes sense since I levelled up seven times separately just really quickly, and not gained seven levels in one level-up, 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 seven times with just thirty or so normal fish? Great! Maybe I can max it out? What will happen then? Will it become a good non-crude Lightning Bolt? Just Lightning Bolt?"
Lone's blood was boiling with excitement.
'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 again, aren't you?' A heavy sigh could be heard in her head. 'We promise we won't. 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.
"Hey, Lone," Sophie called to get his attention.
"Hmm?" Noticing the sharper look on her face, Lone squinted his eyes. "Sophie?"
She nodded before saying, "You should jump in the water and hit yourself with the magic. Won't that increase your Lightning Magic Resistance, PPR and BR as well?"
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."
----------------------------------------
Two days passed in a flash. Land was on the horizon and it was only the morning of the second day since they'd changed their course, So Lone decided to check his gains from his lightning magic training as a way to pass the time before they were able to dock the ship. He would have played a board or card game with Soph, but she needed to focus on the ship so that they didn't run into any rocks and capsize.
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 this skill hadn't ranked up, but he had sort of expected it. Lightning Magic Resistance was a far more useful skill than Crude Lightning Bolt was. After all, it dampened the effects of all lightning magic, not just crude lightning magic.
Active Lightning Magic Skill: Crude Lightning Bolt
An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Lightning Bolt] Lightning Magic skill.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
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 0.25 times.
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]
Lone was very happy with this skill's progress. At intermediate, the MP cost was halved from five-thousand to two-thousand-five-hundred. At advanced, the MP cost was halved once again. Once it reached the expert rank, 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 shark 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 at varying levels based on mastery.
Dilutes a moderate fraction of any physical pains suffered onto the host, allowing the undiluted physical pains to be resisted and endured more easily.
Cost: N/A Mastery: Advanced Level 4 [Up by 3 levels]
He was glad that this skill had levelled up. Not by much, of course since 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. Assuming goblins were the bottom of the barrel when it came to the monsters of this world, then Lone was in a 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, he had learnt a new skill.
Passive Skill: Swimming Mastery
A skill that allows the host to swim with relative ease. Proficiency and speed will increase along with the mastery.
Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 5
Unfortunately, Swimming Mastery seemed to be a somewhat useless skill. It still possessed worth like his Cooking Mastery, Logging, Woodworking, Cartography Mastery, Acting and Persuasion, and thus, he wasn't going to dismiss it so easily, but it really didn't sound all that great.
Hell, as far as Lone knew, the skill could let him breathe underwater at a high enough rank. 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.
Now that he'd checked his skills, Lone felt like checking on his status. He asked 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: 11,130/11,130 [+70] MP: 860/12,110 [+210] Basic Stats Strength: 320 [+10] Vigour: 462 [+12] Dexterity: 466 [+21] Agility: 363 [+30] Vitality: 1,113 [+7] Luck: 64 [+1] Secret Stats Charm: 77 Charisma: 46 Magic Power: 1,211 [+21]
"So few points for killing hundreds of fishes and maybe a dozen sharks..." 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. Otherwise, what was the purpose of the ranks at all if you could infinitely farm stat points?
Still, considering that he could now cast Crude Lightning Bolt nine times before he didn't have enough MP for another bolt, he was a bit disappointed at how few points he's stolen from his prey.
"Captain Lone!" a cute voice called loudly, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Looking up at Soph, he replied, "Yes, Miss Navigator?"
Soph blushed a little at her nickname. She liked it a lot. It made her feel important. "Um, well, there's a ship approaching us. They're dead ahead. I can feel fifty people on board. One has a lot of mana. They feel like humans, I think?"
Lone cracked his neck and clambered up onto his feet. Indeed. He could see a large galleon roughly one-hundred-and-fifty-feet in front of their ship. "Okay. Gimme the wheel. Same rules as with that Snapper person. I'm the stand-in slave who's talking on behalf of my mute and blind master, 'kay?"
Soph nodded and stepped aside, letting him take control as soon as he'd walked up to the ship's upper deck. "I-I'll give control to Sophie. She's better at acting than I am."
Lone nodded. "Okay." He gave her a quick kiss and said goodbye.
Sophie 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 gained the Sailing Mastery skill, but his mind was too busy to be apologetic to his lover for now.
'It's time for you to earn your keep, Acting and Persuasion,' Lone said to himself mentally.