Elise stared at her skill tome in awe. She’d done it. She’d managed to figure out the mechanism for combining two skills, and it had only taken her a day to accomplish. Leon had expected it to take her at least a week, so she felt a clear sense of pride on being well ahead of schedule. Before rushing to the guild hall to report her success, she had to explain to Ray why she was staring at her hands, smiling like an idiot.
“Elise? I didn’t wanna interrupt you while you were thinking again, but... you alright? You fistpumped like you just figured something out.”
“Ray, how would you like to try out a fresh Rank C skill?” Elise asked, seemingly ignoring Ray’s question. Despite seeing the skill in her tome, she didn’t want to rush to celebrate just yet. She had to make sure the skill was actually functional.
“That sounds sick,” Ray said.
“Great! Give me your hand, let me transfer it to you.” Elise realized this was her first time using the main mechanic of Skill Transfer, but unlike the whole combining skills thing, she wasn’t worried about it being difficult. When it came to the primary functionality of skills, they tended to feel nearly automatic to the user. Just as expected, when she took Ray’s hand, a couple of options appeared on her interface.
> Transfer skill from Target to Self
> Transfer skill from Self to Target
The first option would allow her to take a skill from Ray and add it to her skill tome. Of course, she couldn’t just steal skills like this; if she tried to select it, Ray’s interface would show a similar message and he’d get to select what skills to give, or select none at all and cancel the transfer. Instead, Elise selected the second option, which presented her with the list of skills in her tome available for transfer. She selected Double Slash and watched as Ray made some motions with his fingers, likely navigating through his own interface to accept the transfer. Once he did, a new line of text appeared on Elise’s interface.
Begin Transfer from Self to Target?
Yes, Elise thought. Slowly, she could feel energy gathering all throughout her body, a similar feeling to charging the skill, but more gentle. The energy gathered in her shoulders and flowed down her arms, moving from her hands to Rays’ in the form of a dim white glow. It traveled through Ray’s body, dispersing itself evenly before disappearing.
“Did it work?” Elise asked.
“I think so. I see Double Slash in my list of skills.”
“Can you try using it?”
Ray obliged, once again picking up a training sword and placing himself in front of the training dummy. He didn’t bother to charge the skills, so the blade went swiftly through the air without warning, heading for the dummies head. Once it made contact, Ray’s arm blurred and brought the sword to the other side of the dummy’s head at inhuman speed, before returning with a backhand swing, hitting the dummy’s other cheek. Both hits had been less than half a second apart.
“Fifteen damage from the first hit, and ten from the second,” Ray said, assuming that Elise was still taking down data points of his skill usage. “Oh, and it’s a five second cooldown. Same as Piercing Slash when uncharged.”
“Yes!” Elise exclaimed, finally allowing herself the joy of success. The skill had worked just as expected.
“What?” Ray asked, confused at what Elise was celebrating about.
“I wasn’t sure if the skill would work, and I needed someone to test it.”
“Makes sense.” Ray probably thought that Elise had just wanted to test Skill Transfer to make sure that when she gave someone a skill, it worked properly. For now, she’d let him think that. She didn’t feel the need to explain that she’d just cracked skill combination.
“Do you need the skill back?” Ray asked, and Elise nodded. The transfer in the opposite direction was much the same, and Elise was satisfied to see the page for Double Slash reappear in her skill tome.
“Thanks for helping out, Ray,” Elise said. “You have no idea how useful this was.” Elise dismissed the skill tome once more and looked off towards the guild. She made sure to put her sword back in its sheath, and checked the contents of her bag to make sure she had her quest ready to turn in as well.
“Anytime,” said Ray. “And hey, if you’re free now, how about grabbing lunch?”
“Another day,” Elise responded, and she hurried off towards the guild, leaving Ryan stranded in the training yard. Lunch could wait. Meeting with Leon couldn’t.
~~~
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Just like the day before, Elise entered the guild to a hubbub of activity. Not letting herself get distracted, she made her way to the back of the hall, up the stairs and towards Leon’s office. The door was closed, so she gently knocked a few times and waited for a response.
“Come in,” Leon’s voice sounded from behind the door. Elise entered the guildmaster’s office, expecting to find him alone. Instead, she saw a woman she didn’t recognize, seated across from Leon at his desk.
“I’m sorry, is now a bad time?” Elise asked, but Leon waved her in.
“Now is perfect. Ms. Yeltal here was just leaving.” As if on cue, the unfamiliar woman stood up from her seat, giving Elise a curt nod as she rose.
“Thank you for meeting with me, guildmaster. I hope we can resolve this together.”
Leon didn’t say anything, and the woman left the room in silence. Elise took her seat, realizing that she was likely about to get scolded.
“So... that was—” Elise began, and Leon finished her sentence.
“Ms. Samantha Yeltal. Mother of one Howard Yeltal, who I hear was ruthlessly beaten by one of our instructors this morning.” Elise kept a straight face as she tried to feign innocence.
“Oh, that sounds terrible.”
“Please. She mentioned you by name, and asked to have you fired. When I refused to comply, she decided to take it upon herself to sign up for your next class.”
Elise sat there, shocked. She’d expected some form of retaliation from the Yeltals, but not this soon, and not this direct. “Let me guess, she wants to take the chance to fight me herself and avenge her son?”
“She didn’t say, but you could assume so. For that reason, I think it’s best if you let another instructor lead your class, for the time being.”
“What? You’re kicking me out of my own class?” One of the reasons why Elise had felt it’d been okay to fight Howard was her and Leon’s shared animosity towards the nobles. She never could have imagined him siding with them over her.
“Don’t worry, it’s not due to Ms. Yeltal’s remarks,” Leon said, ushering Elise to calm down and let him explain. “That is a contributing factor, I will admit, but the primary reason is we need you to allocate your time as a skill broker, rather than as an instructor. I spent the rest of yesterday making all the necessary arrangements for you to begin your work, and there’s already a significant queue of adventurers who wish to sell or swap skills.”
That reasoning made sense to Elise. She knew Leon worked fast, but even still she hadn’t expected him to advertise skill broker services so quickly. It would also allow her to level up Skill Transfer, which was a necessary step in her journey if she wanted to unlock more of the skill’s secret potential.
“Can’t I still work as both an instructor and a skill broker?” Elise asked. “Class doesn’t take up too much time, and I enjoy teaching.”
“You can,” Leon said. “I’m not forcing you out of your role, I’m simply recommending it. If you wish to continue teaching your class, I will not stop you. However, if you commit yourself to both responsibilities, I doubt you’ll find the time to grow as an adventurer.”
Elise didn’t have an immediate response, so Leon continued. “I don’t expect you to give up teaching that class forever. If at any point you wish to resume your work as an instructor, you may do so, but for the time being I’ll find another instructor to replace you. Are you amenable to that arrangement?”
Elise sighed and nodded. Everything Leon said had made sense, and at this point refusing his suggestions would just be stubborn. “Alright, fine,” she relented. “But only for the time being. I don’t plan on quitting forever.”
“Very well,” Leon said. “Now, I assume that’s not why you decided to pay me a visit.”
“Right. I came to let you know that I figured out how to craft skills. I managed to make Double Slash from the two Slashes you gave me.”
Leon leaned back in his chair a bit, which for the unemotive guildmaster was equivalent to an excited yelp. “Incredible. I didn’t expect you to progress so quickly. May I ask, how did you figure it out?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Elise said. “I started feeling the skills in a certain way in my mind, and realized I needed to pour more energy into them to let them mesh cleanly. It’s hard to explain, it’s sort of just an innate feeling, you know?”
“Skills are often like that. We don’t truly know how they work, and yet we’re able to use them as comfortably as we use our own limbs. Strange, isn’t it? The more we use skills, the more we’re able to accomplish, and yet the less we understand. I hope that as you continue to use Skill Transfer, you’re able to discover abilities even the nobles are unaware of.”
“I hope so too. So, what’s next?”
“Pardon?” There was a hint of confusion in Leon’s voice, forcing Elise to elaborate on her question.
“Now that I’ve figured out how to combine skills, what’s next? Are there some specialty skills you need me to craft? And when can I start forming a team?” Being an official leader of an adventuring team wasn’t something that just happened. You need special permission from the guild, and there was apparently a test you needed to pass if you wanted the permission. Even as a guild employee Elise didn’t know the specifics of the test, so she was hoping Leon could shed some light on the details.
“All in due time. If you’d like my personal recommendation, I’d suggest completing five quests in the east or west, and a couple in the southern forest, before attempting to get party leader certification. Even as guildmaster that is not a privilege I can assign unilaterally.”
Elise sighed. She was naturally impatient, and wanted to jump straight to forming a powerful team, loading them up with handcrafted skills, and conquering the perils of the outside world. She had to remind herself that hastiness and foolishness were often two sides of the same coin.
“Right, okay,” Elise said. “Then when can I start working as a skill broker?” Without her job as a sword fighting instructor to keep her busy, she at least wanted to start working in another way. Even though Leon had said he’d begun advertising skill broker services, she didn’t expect him to start taking requests for at least another couple days. So she was pleasantly surprised when he responded.
“If possible, I’d like you to start right now.”