Ackster was in a twist about what to do once he woke up at the crack of dawn. He had a refreshing sleep, and while his body ached, it was far from enough to make him even consider staying still. With his body in great shape, he was ready to set out and continue getting stronger by fighting monsters while wearing the training equipment that he slept in after rinsing it.

However, simply going straight into the wild without preparations wasn’t the wisest thing to do, especially not now that he had gotten his hands on detailed ways to get more skills.

Reading through the instructions for the basic skills Wilma had given him last night before deciding where to go was obvious. And Ackster did just that. The question about what to do came when he had to decide between actually heading out or staying inside and diving into the mystery of the Nold Secret Skeleton Refinement Technique.

It felt like the secret technique would be time-consuming, and if he holed up in his room with it, he might miss out on an opportunity to secure Karandiel, which was his primary goal in staying on the western side of Lill.

But, if the secret technique was as rewarding as Wilma made it sound, the sooner he began practicing it, the better. In the same vein, if he had to decide whether to go through with it or not, getting a grasp of whether he could learn and practice it was something he ought to do posthaste.

Ackster wasn’t sure what to do. However, doing nothing was the absolute worst. And since he had already been pretty active the last couple of days, he decided to nurture his brain instead of his body this time.

He wanted to learn more skills and feel himself growing stronger since it was the only way to alleviate his Hero-induced paranoia and anxiety temporarily. But he shouldn’t lose sight of his long-term goals just for the sake of his sense of ease and comfort.

So, with Mio in his lap, he set aside the texts concerning the other skills before they could convince him to get out and start acquiring them. One of the things that convinced him to stay put and prioritize the secret technique was the fact that none of the other skills were quick and easy to get.

Some of them were straightforward, but that only meant he had to be patient and take his time fulfilling the acquisition conditions since it was more of a practice and experience deal rather than achievement. So, even if he left for the wild and found suitable opponents to help him practice, it would still take a little while until he got the skills.

Anticipation and trepidation filled Ackster’s eyes as he held up and inspected the seamless box. The only reason he could even tell it was a box in the first place was the fact that it was too square and even to be an ordinary chunk of wood. Ironwood supposedly had straighter and tidier formations than ordinary sorts of wood like oak, pine, and birch.

But Ackster doubted even ironwood was this naturally cuboid. Of course, it could be shaped and cut into a box-like shape without actually being a container. But if it were, Wilma wouldn’t have given it to him.

He knocked on the chunk of solid and heavy wood a couple of times.

‘How am I supposed to open this thing if she doesn’t tell me?’

Ackster couldn’t help but blame Wilma when the box was unresponsive to his fingers crawling all over it, looking for an opening mechanism.

‘Do I need to break it?’

Ackster raised the box, ready to smash it against his knee. He was willing to see if he or the box broke first. But when he gripped the edges hard enough, the lid cracked open.

“Ah!”

Ackster caught the contents with the lid before they could drop to the floor since he had opened it upside down.

‘Stupid design.’

Ackster grumbled as he sorted out the box’s contents and put it all on the bed before he stared at it in wonder. He wasn’t sure what he had expected when he had heard about the secret technique from Wilma. But he thought it would be some complex and overly masochistic training method or something along those lines.

So why was there a hammer and a chisel among the stack of papers bound with a single string in one corner? Like, what was he supposed to do with those? Carve rocks?

He couldn’t even do that.

There was nothing wrong with the hammer. It had a straight wooden handle made from ironwood and a matte grey head with one flat and one round end.

The chisel, on the other hand, would have looked like any other chisel. It also had an ironwood handle and a tip made from the same grey metal, which was where the difference lay.

Instead of a blade that could cut through wood or stone, it was a rounded ball-like tip. And as he touched it, Ackster could feel that it wasn’t completely smooth. It had small groves, like a golf ball, but a lot smaller and barely perceivable even to his keen eyes.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

A chill ran down Ackster’s spine as he touched the ball. It was a small one, but it didn’t bode well, and he put down the chisel-like tool. He didn’t know what it did, and while it felt ominous, he couldn’t just pack things up. He had to find out what it was, and the only way to do that would be to read what was on the papers.

So, he grabbed the bundle of parchments. The paper was slightly rigid and grainy. It also had a yellow tint that Ackster couldn’t tell if it was natural or from age. At least it didn’t give him chills just from touching it.

The only question was if the contents would.

Nold’s Secret Skeleton Refinement Technique: Stage One and Nold’s Secret Skeleton Refinement Technique: Introduction.

‘Is this all?’

As he grabbed the bundle of paper, Ackster realized there were, in fact, two of them, each clearly labeled. He also realized that due to the pages’ thickness, there weren’t that many of them, despite the bundle’s size.

Since the introduction was on top of stage one and was obviously meant to be read first, that’s what Ackster did.

The introduction was pretty straightforward and explained Nold’s thinking and inspiration for the development of the secret technique. It did use some complex terms that Ackster was pretty sure were from Millmeria since he didn’t even recognize the words. But he understood the gist of it.

And he didn’t know what to think of it.

At first, Ackster was a little satisfied to know that his own training, which built on the idea of his body regenerating stronger after being broken down, was also the basis for the secret technique. He had thought of the same thing as someone who Wilma described as an incredible genius. Nold was apparently pretty crazy, but Ackster chose to ignore that part.

Of course, while Ackster stayed on the part where the body heals and becomes stronger after trauma, Nold took it a little further.

Nold chose to target the skeleton since it was the strongest construct in the human body. It was stronger than the muscles and the skin. It didn’t break, bruise, tear, or get cut as easily as the other parts of a human. It also remained the longest after death.

It varied depending on the strength of the individual, but a person’s flesh and soft tissue could rot and deteriorate within a matter of weeks post-mortem. But the skeleton, in the same circumstances, could last years upon years.

In the introduction to the secret technique, Nold described that insight as the seed of his fascination with the human skeleton and how it differed from the rest of the human body. And so, he began trying to find out everything he could about the human skeleton.

But he quickly realized something.

While the human skeleton was a lot sturdier and more durable than the soft fleshy parts of a human, it was slow.

Nold conducted tons of experiments on willing and unwilling participants.

Old farmers who had worked hard for their entire lives would occasionally have sturdier and thicker bones than young warriors who could lift boulders, something the farmers couldn’t do. But old warriors, who, despite their profession and way of life, had remained healthy and able-bodied even in their twilight, didn’t necessarily have the same bone structure as old workers.

The warriors had a different kind of skeletal strength, which usually came from repeated breaks. The farmers and other hard workers, on the other hand, had a skeletal development that seemed to come from constant stress and strain, almost without rest, over long periods of time.

Fighters developed a skeletal formation more suited for explosive bursts in which their bones could handle their strength for shorter periods of time, and farmers passively cultivated a holistic strength that grew their skeletons to be more durable and have greater endurance.

The muscles, ligaments, and joints also interested Nold. But he quite quickly concluded that they were easily trained and improved to suit certain goals and professions, especially when compared to the skeleton, which could take a lifetime to strengthen properly.

The discovery grabbed hold of Nold’s mind like a vice, and he was left with no choice but to dig deeper and explore the potential of the human skeleton even further. Along the way, he also set out to devise a method to bring out that potential.

Nold realized that what made the human skeleton so strong in the first place was the material and the internal structure. That was also why the skeleton was slower to develop and train. It didn’t break as easily as muscles, and it wasn’t as easily rebuilt and strengthened. It took time for the human body to supply the materials needed to heal the damage to the skeleton. And it took effort to make it stronger than before.

It was amazing that the human body was capable of something so incredible, but it wasn’t enough for Nold. He wanted to help the body on the way and make the natural process faster and find a way to make the skeleton as strong as inhumanely possible.

Healing magic that focused on speeding up the body’s natural recovery rather than removing any damage could handle the first part.

But healing magic alone wouldn’t be enough to accomplish Nold’s goal. It would only reduce the time needed to strengthen the skeleton. But even then, there would be a limit to how strong the skeleton could grow. It would also be difficult to make the skeleton’s growth even and balanced throughout the entire body.

So, Nold sought inspiration from other materials. He closely inspected the structure and composition of materials with a sturdiness that could rival and surpass even the strongest human skeleton to see what was missing or how he could make up for what was lacking.

He looked at stones, ores, alloys, trees, compounds, and other being’s skeletons and eventually came up with a method that he eventually refined into the Nold’s Secret Skeleton Refinement Technique.

The secret technique was a lengthy and excruciating process that, while not as efficient as what Nold had first set out to do, theoretically achieved a result he was satisfied with.

There wasn’t anything about the results or if anyone had ever gotten that far in the introduction, which was a little concerning, but Ackster put it aside as he confirmed that he had finished the introduction and there was nothing on the back.

He grabbed the Stage One part of the secret technique. It was the introductory part of the technique and what would set him up for the following stages. It was fitting that the introduction to the technique and the technique’s introduction were together. But he couldn’t help but wonder where the rest was.