“Wow,” I blinked a few times. “I’m shocked.”

“At what?” Dominus chuckled. “You leveled up twice and haven’t been looking at your Status regularly, of course it’s changed a lot.”

“I get that, but it’s my [Skill Masteries], they’re all so much higher than before. Isn’t that abnormal?” According to what I’d been told, it could take people actively using a [Skill] for months to see even a few percentage points of increase at the lower levels. It wasn’t unheard of for the last few percentage points before evolving to take years.

“You’re my Chosen, of course Skills come easily to you. I created most of them.”

My jaw dropped. “What?!”

She waved a hand and the space around us was filled with System windows. As I took them in, all of them were Skills and they were all both evolved and mastered. “Besides ruling the gods, that’s what I spent my time doing, creating new Skills for the System to hand out. That passive you’ve probably forgotten about, [Chosen of Dominus],” she smirked, “my Chosen, helps you master Skills a hell of a lot faster. What do you expect? You have dozens of Skills to master already and you’ve been adventuring for less than a month. If it took you as long as everyone else you’d have a ton of low mastery Skills and get killed by a damn [Horned Rabbit] or something.”

“I could handle a [Horned Rabbit] when I was five. Two [Magic Missiles] and they died.” I did my best to save face, but I was beet red. “I think I understand what you mean though. With that lovely passive, I can focus on what I need to do and I should be able to master what I want to quickly.” One thing caught my eye. “Hey, what happened with [Elemental Bolt]? I haven’t used it in a decade and suddenly it increases in mastery by twenty-seven percent. What gives?”

“Think about it.” She beamed. “Honestly, it’s something I’m pretty proud of you for.”

What could she be talking about? What have I done that would make her proud? She laughed as the tip of my tongue poked out the bottom corner of my mouth as I wracked my brain. She’s the goddess of Skills and… rulers.

“[Elemental Pactlord]?” I raised an eyebrow. “How is that linked to [Elemental Bolt]? It’s a summoning [Spell], not a combat [Spell].”

“That’s not how [Lord Skills] work.” She banished the thousands of screens surrounding our couch and instead pulled up a blank screen before writing [Elemental Pactlord] in the center of it. “I hadn’t expected you to get your first [Lord Skill] for a while, to be honest. They can take a long time to figure out, even for my Chosen.”

She drew a circle around the words before drawing four lines out from the circle and then drew circles at the ends of those lines. “You see [Lord Skills], as they’re called, represent an almost supernatural connection to whatever it is they’re tied to. In [Elemental Pactlord]’s case, that’s the elemental planes.” She wrote Summoning, Direct Control, Manifestation, and Understanding in the open bubbles. “I’d guess that these are the portfolios you have access to, even if you’ll never really know without finding a [System Stone].”

My eyes shone at the idea before she dashed my hopes. “Trust me, don’t worry about them, they’re holdovers from when the System wasn’t fully integrated. They just give wordier descriptions than the System does nowadays. As far as I’m concerned, it’s better this way.”

“What exactly do these things mean? I can guess about the Summoning and Understanding ones, given what I’ve already done, but the other two?” I shrugged. “They don’t really make much sense given what I did.”

She nodded. “You’re not wrong, but in your case your unique upgrade was a gift from the Elemental Monarchs. When you accepted the gift, good job on that by the way, they basically shoved all the information you might need to put the thing to work properly straight into your head.” She tapped the pair of bubbles with Direct Control and Manifestation. “These two? They’re why [Elemental Bolt] gained a bunch of mastery percentage points. Your control, should you ever use it again, will likely be significantly better than before, up to and including doing curved shots with it if you plan ahead. That’s part of Manifestation, but Direct Control is just using [Elemental Pactlord] to move the elements all around you.”

She patted my shoulder. “When you wake up, try to reach out to the campfire. I’m willing to bet you can move the flames in it, though don’t push too hard or you might turn it into a small [Campfire Elemental].”

“Gotcha.” I shook my head and looked over the rest of the changes to my Status.

[Mystic Eyes - Passive Skill - You can see the flows of magic and can inherently understand them. This is not an additional form of vision, rather it is applied to your standard vision as a filter you can turn on and off through a System prompt.]

Looks like [Arcane Sight] evolved when I started walking the [Path of the Scholar] to become [Mystic Eyes]. I should probably leave it on most of the time, but not right now. I don’t need to go blind by accidentally catching a glimpse of Dominus with it. Nope, I’ll keep my vision intact.

[Friendly Face - Passive Skill - People are twenty percent more likely to regard you friendly on initial meeting. Their opinions will change based on further impressions, but first impressions are usually what matters most. You will be notified if this Skill was the deciding factor to a positive impression.]

Must be what [Charm] going to a hundred got me. I guess it can’t hurt, but I can’t help but wish for something more concrete. Eh, can’t complain too much, at least I’ll know if it’s working unlike some of those crazy cultivation novels Grandpa likes to read. Skills without a System? Preposterous.

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[Spell Turning - Passive Skill - Non-beneficial Spells used against you have a twenty percent chance to fail outright. If that happens, there is another twenty percent chance the Spell will rebound and head back to the caster.]

I’m willing to bet that’s [Arcane] hitting three hundred right there. I’m not going to turn down a twenty percent chance to ignore Spells cast on me and if four percent of the time it returns to sender? I’m not going to complain.

[Holy Visions - Passive Skill - Blessed by the divine, you are more in tune with nature, the gods, and the world as a whole. In places where any of those things hold sway, you will have an inherent understanding of which of those things is at play. This does not grant you protection from those effects, but it may inform you if you need to worry about them.]

That has to be [Divine] hitting three hundred. Honestly, the part I’m most surprised about is that it cares about nature in addition to the gods. I wonder if that’s why [Druids] and their ilk care about their [Divine] stat so much. Now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense. I’m glad I’m doing this in my head, or Dominus would be laughing at me right now… on to the next [Skill].

[Spatial Awareness - Passive Skill - You now have a heightened sense of your surroundings. Your ability to perceive the environment in three dimensions, accurately judge distances, and anticipate potential hazards is greatly increased. This will allow you to navigate complex terrain with ease, avoid traps, and even predict the movements of enemies.

[Perception] hitting one hundred, no doubt about it. I wonder how it’ll sync up with [Trap Finding], considering it mentions them in its description. It’s right on the edge of evolving, so maybe I’ll find out soon?]

I shook my head to clear out the fog that threatened to take over. “I’m starting to feel groggy. Is everything OK?”

“Our time together draws short.” Dominus pulled me in close to her and pressed my back against her chest as she wrapped her arms around me. “We were only able to spend so long together because you leveled up twice in between rests. Maybe you can keep doing that?”

She sounded so sad, I wanted to agree, but knew I couldn’t. Before I could reply, she continued. “I know you can’t do it all the time, but I’ll treasure those times you can.”

I overlapped my hands with hers. “As will I.”

“Charmer you.” Her tone belied how happy I’d made her as it came out much higher than usual. “Anyway, before you go, I want to remind you of something.”

What could that be? My memory is kind of ass, so I’ll take any help I can get.

“What might that be?” I tried to sound cool, but her snort told me I failed.

She picked me up and spun me around to face her. “You have another Unique Skill with my name on it. Don’t be afraid to use it in town, no one will be able to see the results but you and your retainers.” My vision started going black and she pulled me in for one more bone crushing hug.

“Come back to me, OK? I get lonely…” Her voice faded to nothing as the void disappeared entirely.

***

The sound of heavy panting greeted me as I struggled to open my eyes. The moment I succeeded, Raiju licked my face from top to bottom with a huge wolfy grin.

“I leveled up!” She barked happily. “I haven’t leveled up in so long! I’m so much stronger now… I can protect you Artie!” A few licks later, I managed to slide off the [Cloud Carpet] and began to stretch.

“That’s awesome, what’d you do with your level?” I twisted my back and hips until they popped into their proper position before starting toward where I could hear lunch being prepared.

She bounded along next to me at dog size instead of her massive lupine form, but looked away as she spoke. “I asked the System to grant me more [Wits] and [Perception] so I could be a better companion to you.” Her ears drooped. “Are you mad?”

“Nothing could be further from the truth.” I stopped and dropped to one knee before pulling her in to my chest for a big hug. “Thank you for thinking of me when you were leveling up, but don’t forget about your own wants and needs. We’re going to be together for a long time and I’d hate for you not to be yourself for my sake.”

“OK, Artie.” She nuzzled into my neck. “I’m just happy you’re not mad.”

I ruffled her fur, but before I could respond a hickory box about two foot cubed popped into existence next to my right foot with a loud pop.

With my new [Spatial Awareness] I could tell there was nothing unusual about the exterior of the box, but the inside was a mystery to me.

“Raiju, go get Jaegan and Ylsa.” I gave her a gentle push towards the door. “I’m going to check this box out and I need you to let them know, just in case.”

As she left, I knelt down next to the box and went over it with a fine toothed comb. My manual inspection confirmed what my [Spatial Awareness] told me. There was nothing unusual about the box except for the fact that it popped out of thin air right next to me.

“Nothing to it but to do it.” I put a hand on the lip of the box to open it and immediately thought better of it. “You know what? I might actually have something for this.”

I pulled up my [Dominated Skills] list and hurried to slot in a couple new Skills since I no longer had to worry about doing so for [Haste], [Air Step], or [Psyknife] after my level up.

[Dominated Skills - Slots Available 2/6

Minor Magnesis

Photosynthesis

Healing Light

Sun Jump]

“Those should do it. One to open the damn thing and one to get away if it tries to explode.”

From outside the window on my carpet, I reached out with [Minor Magnesis] and used a discarded fork to wedge in the opening of the box. With a grunt at the surprising amount of effort required, I heaved the box open to reveal a pair of scrolls and a letter. Since it didn’t explode or spray out some kind of evil gas, I figured it must be relatively safe.

With a Herculean display of will, I refrained from looking at the scrolls until I checked out the letter. It wasn’t in an envelope, so I was able to use the fork to lift it up and read it after a moment of finagling.

Arthur Neilson,

I regret to inform you that this pair of [Skill Scrolls] were all I was able to put together on such short notice. Worry not, for I have commissioned three more to be made in the coming weeks as payment for the work you’ve already done on my behalf. I’ve contacted the Governess of Chalcedony and she will have three more [Skill Scrolls] ready when you figure out what’s going on with the Tower.

Please make haste toward Chalcedony, for I have been told Tower monsters have been seen roaming the streets and their guards have taken heavy losses defending the townsfolk. I have already placed a contract with the Adventurers’ Guild and had it forwarded to the Chalcedony branch so you can accept it when you get there.

When you are ready for the [Item Box] to return to me, place the evidence of the mining camp’s state and orders within and close the box. Once done, say ‘Evergreen, not Ever Gullible’ to send it on its way. I thank you again for all you’ve done and look forward to working with you more in the future.

Sincerely,

King Gareth Evergreen