Lone nodded his head in satisfaction, now feeling much better after seeing the fruits of his labour during the expedition.

  The notification log was one thing though, seeing it all consolidated was another. As such, he focused his mind and pulled up his entire skill list, making sure to have it indicate all of the recent gains.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  There was a lot to think about and reflect on. The primary thing was that Survivor's Speed was an incredibly dangerous skill to use.

  Lone recalled its description.

  'A skill intended to be used when the host's life is in danger and the only answer is to run or to react with the speed of lightning.

  Multiplies all speed-related aspects of the host by a factor of 10.

  Warning: The host may suffer injuries from the activation of the skill, both to their body and to their mind. If the host does not possess sufficient mental or physical strength, then they risk destroying themselves when using this skill.'

  The speed boost wasn't purely a muscle thing. It affected his thinking, his heart rate, his blood circulation, the speed at which he breathed; everything. He almost exploded when he used it, resulting in both him and Soph unanimously agreeing to ban it until he was powerful enough to even consider trying to handle its side effects.

  Likely when his stats matched those of an X-ranker. Although, they had no idea what an X-ranker's stats actually looked like at this point. He had a frame of reference for an SS-ranker's stats from his time demonstrating his prowess against the X-ranker Xer'rava, but that hardly helped. It was something to look into in the future.

  The only other thing that was of any particular note was that Architecture Mastery had levelled up a few times just from Lone having studied the buildings of Urd Siltal. He had little better to do while he prowled the streets in search of the Sheinlings lucky enough to not be affected by his Wide Taunts.

  Lone leaned back and ran his fingers through Soph's hair lovingly. It might have been a little bit after midnight, but he wasn't tired at all.

  'May as well go over the new skill rank ups. It never hurts to familiarise myself with what I can do when I have dozens upon dozens of skills,' He decided.

  The order he chose to check the new skill rank-ups followed the order in which they appeared on his skill list, meaning Hand Axe and Hatchet Mastery were up first.

  In essence, Hand Axe Mastery made it easier to covertly act with his other hand when using a hand axe, and he could now cut things really well with Chop.

  Meanwhile, Hatchet Mastery wasn't overly helpful in combat but its new active effect sounded incredible.

  'If only weapon talents could be used interchangeably between weapons...' Lone sighed internally before he abruptly froze. 'Wait. Maybe... maybe they can? The wording states 'the host's weapon', right? It doesn't expressly point out it can only be used on hatchets and nothing else...'

  He immediately sat up, eliciting some discontent grumbling from the still sleeping Soph. He reached into his Dimensional Storage and retrieved a simple dagger with a 12-inch long blade.

  "Woodsman," he invoked.

  In less than a second, the dagger had become the length of a shortsword. It was a bit awkward to hold since the grip, too, had grown, but with the right application, this information could be critical.

  "What a discovery. What a fucking discovery," He repeated excitedly. "This shows, even more, how big of a fool I was to stick to only my swordspear. I can make my primary weapon far, far stronger by investing some time into getting as many weapons as possible to intermediate rank - further for stronger effects."

  Before long, the dagger had returned to its true form so Lone chucked it back into his unique storage skill.

  He was in a very good mood now, having completely moved past the bitterness of his recent interaction with Darkness. With a smile on his face, he resumed going through his new rank ups.

  'Does that include books enchanted to be unreadable? Does it include coded volumes? What about sealed tomes? I bet it does. I hope it does. I definitely need to be more conscious of how I'm using my skills. This and Tail Spear are perfect examples of why I could fuck myself over by mindlessly grinding a skill only to get a useless extra effect for not doing anything unique with it where I could have gotten a godly additional effect by doing something out of the norm like hurting an X-ranker or reading in almost complete darkness. FOMO is scary,' Lone reflected.

  Bog-standard. It wasn't a skill Lone overly cared about nor one he actively trained since Soph was trying to level the skill herself.

  He had no qualms now when it came to learning skills his friends prided themselves on anymore, but he wouldn't ever stop or interfere with their efforts to earn skills themselves.

  Lone even actively offered assistance where possible, which was why he'd gained a level in Teaching Mastery during their expedition.

  He, of course, still cooked here or there though when neither Soph nor Hamish felt up to making lunch or dinner, and that was why it had even ranked up in the first place. Still, even then, Lone usually opted to take out one of the already cooked meals he kept stored away.

  'You refuse to level now with just the eye wraps. I need to find some sort of illusionary puzzle box to mess around with for this one. Would the Crimson Foxkin Clan have something like that? Maybe, considering their racial skill. Could always try building one myself, but I'd need more steamforging knowledge and an illusion mage to experiment with,' Lone thought as he moved on.

  Lone sighed. 'Soph was this close to letting me give her a massage but then the skill just had to rank up, and then Sophie just had to moan even louder than usual to get a rise out of her meeker self. Damned succubus acting like the pleasure had gone up by 100%, not just 10%. Ha-ah... one day.'

  The final skill that had ranked up over the course of the mission expedition was Wide Taunt.

  Nothing new, but all of the moving parts had been improved which was something Lone felt joyous about.

  'May as well check out my status too. I mostly chose this mission for the Luck, after all,' Lone thought.

  'I cannot wait until I can apply a stat. That's likely a long way off but still can't help getting excited. I'm glad my Luck shot up as much as it did though,' Lone thought. 'Maybe now, with it being almost a thousand more than where it was when we came here, my life won't be quite so miserable.'

  Soph squirmed in his arms a bit before grabbing a handful of tails. She then smiled contently in her sleep.

  A grin surfaced on Lone's lips. He kissed his girlfriend's forehead and mumbled, "Well, at least it hasn't been entirely miserable."

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