While he was still several miles away from Puppet Town, Edge took advantage of his privacy to do something that he couldn’t do within the walls. It was finally time to get in some training with the skills that he was keeping hidden for now.

He needed to become more familiar with his powers, so that he could use them effectively in battle. He was getting to know regeneration, elemental blade, and slash fairly well by this point, but the rest of his abilities were still relatively new to him.

Edge needed to develop a better sense of what each of his skills could do. Try them out in a range of situations and test out a few ideas that he’d been wondering about.

After taking a long look around to make sure that he wasn’t being observed, he started off with entangle. He began casting the spell on random animals he passed by, getting a feel for the timing and speed of his vines.

He soon found out that they were too slow to catch anything by themselves, at least without a plan. On a brighter note, after paying the cost to manifest the skill, he could keep the vines going for only small drain to his mana. A loss that he barely even noticed after the recent improvements to his Generation.

He also learned that the tendrils were more than happy to wrap around a stationary target, like a boulder or tree. It might offer some utility as a stabilizing force in certain situations. When Edge tried entangling himself, he discovered that he could control how tightly the tendrils gripped him. He could use the skill as an anchor if something ever tried to drag him away.

With shadow step, there was also an upfront cost followed by a constant drain, which meant that it was more efficient to use it in one long stretch than in several short bursts. After burning through a quarter of his tank flitting amongst the tall grass, Edge moved on to his next skill.

He was pleased to learn that the upfront cost of using conceal wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, its drain was too high to use the skill for a prolonged period, at least at his current stage. It also took about a second to reach its full effect. Anything that watched him disappear would probably be able to figure out that he was still there. A limitation that he would keep in mind when he tried using it in battle.

When Edge deliberately left some tracks in the mud and then activated the skill, he watched on in delight as the marks erased themselves. The dents in the ground filled back in, all in the blink of an eye. The stalks that he broke in passing didn’t grow back, but they rearranged themselves so that the damage no longer looked recent.

He was thrilled to see that the changes remained when he deactivated the skill. This is really going to come in handy.

After keeping conceal running for several minutes straight, animals began to appear—creatures that normally hid as he moved through the area. He watched several small critters pass by so close that he could have reached out and touched them before moving on.

Last but not least, came leap and double strike. Now that it didn’t hurt to land, Edge soon discovered that leaping across the grasslands was really fucking fun. The skill didn’t just give him vertical height, it also let him move faster than he could run.

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If he leapt several times in a row, he could really get going. He soon reached the point where he was afraid of a nasty crash, even with the bonus Durability the skill granted and regeneration standing by to pick up the pieces.

The downside was that jumping around revealed his position to anything in the area. It would also leave him vulnerable to ranged attacks, since he couldn’t change his trajectory midflight. But if he was fighting in melee against a beast on the ground, it would let him rapidly reposition, providing a means of evasion as well as an emergency retreat.

As an experiment, he tried whipping out his knife and double striking on the way back down. Edge was happy to learn that it didn’t count as a skill combo, even with leap’s secondary effect still active. But he was going to have to put in a hell of a lot more practice if he wanted to turn the move into a viable attack.

He came to a stop after one last jump. By now, he was panting for breath and as low on mana as he was comfortable being out in the wild.

It was at this point that Edge realized he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. Using his powers, just for the sheer joy of it, was an incredible experience. It really drove home the fact that he was standing on an alien world, able to use the magic that he had always dreamed of.

What a great day. He picked up his kills and started walking back to town. I really needed that.

When he took his haul by Izzio’s shop, the butcher gave him an impromptu lesson in dressing smaller game. The most interesting part was how to remove their hides. It was a bit like peeling off a sock. The technique left an intact sleeve that could be used to make a variety of products.

Since the man could sell the hides and the meat in his shop without having to barter at the market, he went ahead and paid Edge up front, without charging him extra this time. On top of that, Izzio had finished selling the jobo parts that Edge and Jumo had brought in, and he had the creds waiting for them to collect.

After shaking hands, they both summoned their Guides to initiate a credit transfer. Edge walked away with another five thousand, seven hundred Credits in his account, which wasn’t a bad bonus for a rewarding day of skill hunting. Not to mention a free lunch in the company of a delightful woman.

Now that he had enough Credits that he could explain away, he decided that it was time to make a major purchase that he’d been looking forward to for several days now. He made his way over to the store run by the Crafters’ Consortium and said hello to Bee.

While she was helping another customer, Edge walked over to the racks of armor, running his fingertips across the various materials. He took in the textures of chitin and leather. Steel plate, chain, and silk. There were even a few pieces made from exotic substances, like seashell and what felt like some manner of incredibly dense rubber.

When Bee came over, he pointed to the suit he was considering. The one made from a rugged blue leather she had shown Edge the last time he stopped by. While he thought the matter over, she told him about the armor, going into more detail this time.

He listened to her pitch while trying it on. The first set was a little small, but she had another in the back that was just the right size.

The hue was so deep that it was nearly black, and although it was waterproof, it didn’t reflect much light back. It wouldn’t give away his position, and seemed decently tough, especially compared to his own tender flesh. It consisted of a pair of pants and a long-sleeved jacket, with a high collar that could be zipped up to guard his neck.

The skill-treated leather wouldn’t stop a powerful penetrative attack. But it would reduce the incidental damage he took from tooth and claw, while distributing the force of blunt attacks over a wider area. Using regeneration wasn’t cheap, and Edge wanted to have more mana available for his other skills if it came down to a brawl.

After a bit of haggling, he got Bee to throw in a firestarter for the original price she’d quoted. It was a basic magtech model, which would work for hundreds of lights before needing to be refueled. Eight thousand Credits well spent.

Satisfied with the purchase, Edge ate dinner in the common room of the Pioneer. He spent an hour chatting with Rita and Sam, then went up to his room for a few hours of conditioning before passing out.

He fell asleep dreaming of Sasha, snoring away with a smile on his face.