Lone: The Wanderer-Chapter 70Book 3: : Familiar Face and Skill Improvements

"Didn't master Mezro'nan tell you to go see Lone in 20 minutes?" Scott asked Hazel as he flopped down onto a sofa in their shared common room. "It's been 30 or so by my count."

"I had a gut feeling he would have wanted more time than he asked for. If he wanted me on time, he would have just come and got me after a minute or two of being late. Remember Sofia's teleportation?" Hazel responded.

She was actively suppressing her unique skill but she could still tell what her friend was thinking by his expression. "Don't remind me. I swear, every time she sees me that fuckin' gremlin shoves me in a barrier."

"Haha, you make a good point though. I'll go now. Hold the fort while I'm gone?" Hazel asked.

Scott shrugged. "I'm gonna nurse my fucked ankles, but sure. What're you gonna do, Breena?" Scott asked the quiet girl standing in the shadowed corner of the room.

'She's the youngest of us but also the gloomiest. I wonder if she'll ever tell us why she's like that? How did she and my brother meet? Maybe I should ask him in a bit? I have a feeling she wouldn't say anything even if I was super direct about it,' Hazel thought as she got up.

Breena just shook her head. "I'll wait. I can talk to Master Lone when he returns later."

Scott laughed. "There she goes again with that 'master' stuff. Anyway, have fun, yeah? I'm gonna bet five copper you or he accidentally piss someone off and then he'll have to beat the shit out of them. He's totally gonna disguise himself for your outing and that'll get you both in trouble."

"I'll take that bet," Hazel responded. Five copper wasn't much and she trusted her brother would go out of his way to ensure nothing like that happened given this was meant to be a time for them to get closer.

It wasn't long before Hazel was entering the waiting room that had not long ago hosted two X-rankers, her brother, and her brother's girlfriend.

Her eyes widened deeply as she saw Lone wearing the appearance of himself from Earth. He looked just like Darren McCullen except more cleaned up and without the bags under his eyes. He was even wearing his old glasses.

"Lone?" she asked in an uncertain tone.

He turned to look at her and smiled. "Surprised? I've been dealing with the existential dread that I might not be actually Lone, a powerful Golden Foxkin, which, despite all of my troubles, I very much so enjoy being. I even got a skill because of it called Identity DissociationResistance, so I figured I need to accept my past as a part of me instead of trying to ignore it. Plus, if we're going out on a sibling venture, I should look like your brother, no?"

'That's... heavy...' Hazel thought. "Do I want to ask why you started having thoughts like that?"

He shrugged. "It ain't too serious. I was drowning myself and started having near-death hallucinations. They show up now every time I drown myself."

"What?" Hazel asked, shocked. 'Is he suicidal? Why? I thought he enjoyed his new life. I know he went through hell in Milindo, but that's in the past new and he said he was fi-'

"Gotta train my water magic skills somehow so may as well level a resistance or two at the same time, right?" he replied with a grin that didn't suit his human face quite as well as it did his golden foxkin one. The mania really shined through when he just looked like a person, not a multicoloured mythical yokai or something. "I did the same with Lightning Bolt. Shocked myself in the ocean to level Lightning Magic Resistance."

'... He's really gone off the deep end. Well, if nothing else, he wants to spend time with me so maybe he's not completely lost yet?' Hazel pondered while she stared at her brother.

Lone stared right back at his little sister's face which was expressing a mix of shock, horror, pity, and worry. He smiled. "If we're gonna get closer, then I'm gonna stop trying to be less like myself for you kids, or, at least for you. This is what I'm like now and I love it. Well, not like that. I'm no masochist, but I'm all for skill efficiency. I am nigh unkillable, so gotta be efficient with that and also strengthen that aspect of myself in a setting I can control rather than one I can't, right?"

"Riiiight..." Hazel parroted with a less than stellar amount of conviction in her tone.

"Okay, I get it. I won't bring this stuff up unless you ask, but if you think I'm harsh training you guys, then you should watch me training myself. Onwards to that zoo place you mentioned?" Lone asked. "Ah, and just call me Darren since I look like this right now."

"I just started getting used to calling you Lone..." Hazel sighed. "And it isn't a zoo, it's a beast catching experience."

"Big Bro or Big Brother works too. I'll let 'you' or 'hey' fly too if you're feeling particular rude," Lone said which earned his a laugh from his little sister. "We'll just make a quick stop to the nearest guild branch first. Like I said earlier, I've gotta update the list and we've gotta get you a skill tutoring session."

"Right, 'the list'. Whatever that is... I have some ideas, but contract magic won't let you confirm them, will it?" Hazel asked.

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Lone shrugged. "I could push through but I don't wanna start bleeding through every hole in my body. It's messy. And I just got over some pretty nasty self-inflicted soul pains recently. Now, lead the way, You know the city better than me, don't you?"

"I'd hope so," Hazel snorted. "I have lived here for eight months now. C'mon, the nearest guild is like, a five minute walk from here? It's not too big since this is the magic district we're in. More magic guilds and recruitment centres for schools here than mercenaries and contract fighters like us adventurers."

"Oh, a real expert, huh?" Lone asked.

Hazel wore a proud smirk. "I hate it at the best of times but my unique skill is very helpful at learning the lay of the land, who does what, and a bunch of juicy secrets." R𝘈ＮÒ𝔟ΕṤ

"It sounds super useful. Feel free to use it during our outing if you want to, by the way. I'll suppress my mental defenses just enough for you to barely feel them without being able to crack through 'em. Might get you a levelup or two while we're at it," Lone suggested.

"It's always skills with you, isn't it?" Hazel said in a disapproving tone. "But yeah, sure. It's becoming a bit of a strain to keep limiting Mind Reading. Now, follow me. We only have so much daylight left and I don't want you wasting it all at the guild. Getting tutored will take a couple of hours at least, so the sooner that's done, the sooner we can go fishing."

While he followed Hazel through Master Mezro'nan's tower, Lone thought about his gains from the two month training.

The remaining 24 skills that had just finished checked could be quite easily summarised.

Longbow Mastery gained the talent Distant Shot, which increased the distance a fired arrow would have flown by 1.25x.

Longsword Mastery's boost that made it so longswords used him would be 5% less likely to dull had become 15% while also granting the skill the talent Overhead Slash, allowing his to double the power of an overhead slash with any bladed weapon.

Quarterstaff Mastery's new talent was called Strike, which doubled the concussive force of the weapon it was used on and it didn't seem to have restrictions on the weapon type, making this a very valuable talent just like the previous Overhead Slash.

Shortbow Mastery gained the talent Compressed Force and it increased not the power but specifically the deadliness of a nocked arrow by two times its base amount.

Shortspear Mastery's new talent Jab, allowed him to attack twice as fast as normally possible with blade-tipped weapons specifically. Lone had already tested that talent on his tails during his and Sofia's two months of isolation and it worked, which was a pleasant surprise.

Shortsword Mastery, of course, earned the talent Follow Up which he already knew about since Sofia had it, but to summarise it, it also doubled the speed of an attack except it was for the following one of the attack it was actually used on. It was interesting since it, while forcing you to pay the costs again, could in theory let you use once a day or even more restrictive skills, effects, talents, or whatever else, again since the follow up attack copied the first in every way except for the speed.

Of course, all of these skills also had their inherent bonuses go up from 5% to 15%. Sadly, a good amount of the 24 skills only had that bonus attributed to their rank up and nothing else.

Architecture Mastery let him see a simple grid layout instead of a very basic one.

Sex Mastery's bonuses increased from 15% to 30% which could be a bother since one of its two bonuses made him more attractive. It was a concern he, Soph, and Sophie, all shared more for her ranking the skill up than for him since she also possessed it and was already incredibly beautiful.

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Pet Mastery's bonus went up to 30% and it gained a new effect that allowed him to sense when a creature or wild sentient being was tamable. This had yet to be tested but Lone assumed it meant the being could be tamed in theory, not that it was immediately ready to enjoy a domesticated life.

Massage Mastery only had its bonus go up to 30% and nothing else.

Fear resistance was fun. Its bonus had gone up from 30% to 60% and it had gained the effect of doubling the rate Lone could gather his courage when afraid and it would also double his resolution in that state. It had been earned and not automatically granted. The system saw fit to give it to him for repeatedly making himself scared while drowning himself. At least, that was his current theory.

Fire Resistance, Heat Resistance, and Lava Resistance, all had their bonuses go up from 5% to 60% since the rest of the Thrice Refined Demonic Lava shots had pushed them all to expert-level-one. Demonic Influence Resistance was the same except the bonus stopped at 30% since the skill had only reached advanced-level-one, clearly being a higher grade of skill than the other three.

Drowning Resistance, Poison Magic Resistance, Nature Magic Resistance, and Explosion Magic Resistance, all had their bonuses go up from 5% to 15% and nothing more.

He had 'cultivated' the skill Internal Strengthening Arts to the first tier, third level. he could certainly feel the effects of this skill given that he now struggled ever so slightly to push through his muscles and organs when severing his own limbs, as was perfectly normal and not worthy of questioning.

Amplified Current could now last for ten seconds instead of its old limit of five, and it could now be doubled in strength at the expense of halving its duration back to five seconds via a new effect. Its cost has also gone down from 10,000 MP to 8,000 MP.

Drowning Chamber gained the new passive effect where every chamber would now also apply 5,000 PSI of crushing pressure to the victim. A negligible number to Lone, but perhaps one day it would be strong enough to let him earn and train Physical Pressure Resistance assuming that was a skill. Its cost had also decreased from 20,000 MP per second to 16,000.

Thorny Itch could now be used on two targets at once instead of just one and its cost had decreased from 1,000 MP per second to 800 MP, but that cost applied to each target so it could be 1,600 per second theoretically.

Venomous Stream's beam was now adjustable to quite a significant degree since the new effect relied on both mastery and magical affinity. With Lone's affinity being 100%, that made this quite the dangerous additional effect indeed. Of course, the cost had gone down too from 2,000 MP to 1,600 per second.

And the final skill to have ranked up over the last two months was the ever-reviled Insanity Resistance. Hate it as he did, Lone couldn't deny it was useful. It hadn't gained anything new, no, it's bonus had simply increased from 5% to 15% and that was it.

Of course, there was also his newly updated status with the spoils of an X-ranker to check. He could already feel how much stronger he was but seeing the numbers wouldn't hurt.

Status Name:Lone ImmortusSex:Male Age:26 [+1]Level:499 [+99] SpeciesFoxkinRank:B Race:Golden Foxkin HP:Base:380,310/380,310 [+155,570] Boosted Amount: 760,620/760,620SP:Base:224,350/224,350 [+93,450] Boosted Amount: 351,456/448,700 MP:Base:850,420/850,420 [+402,700] Boosted Amount: 1,201,483/1,700,840WF:Base:1,300/1,300 Boosted Amount: 2,600/2,600 Basic Stats Strength:Base: 14,041 [+5,211] Boosted Amount: 28,082Vigour:Base:22,435 [+9,345] Boosted Amount: 44,870 Dexterity:Base:10,756 [+3,652] Boosted Amount: 21,512[A] Agility:Base:11,011 [+3,096] Boosted Amount: 22,022 Vitality:Base:38,031 [+15,557] Boosted Amount: 76,062Luck:Base:1,705 [+170] Boosted Amount: 3,410 Secret Stats Charm:Base:550 [+341] Boosted Amount: 1,100Charisma:Base: 225 Boosted Amount: 450 Magic Power:Base:85,042 [+40,270] Boosted Amount: 170,084

'So many fuckin' stats... Still, feels a bit... small for an X-ranker, no?' Lone considered.

He reasoned it was likely the case that her order of being an X-ranker was too high for Growth Accelerator to accurately absorb the normal rate of stats it usually took from his kills. That made the most sense, at least.

'I've been thinking about the order of one's being a lot since that meeting... Well, I guess it's possible she was weak for an X-ranker. The MP is still super impressive. The Vitality and and Vigour too. I'll be able to do a lot with those. It's a shame I didn't rank up. I guess I didn't have as much enlightenment backed up as I thought I did.'

"You're being awfully quiet," Lone said as he and Hazel walked through the streets of Golden Pass City's magic district without getting so much as a second glance from anyone.

That was refreshing. Lone was used to be the subject of discriminatory glances or, in this city specifically, looks of awe and utter-respect. It was nice but it was similar to a celebrity being unable to go shopping in public and be left alone without a disguise on.

She pointed to her head. "Even suppressed, it's taking a bit of time to get used to you. And I'm trying to not get lost. I've only been to the magic district, like, four times? I'm mostly following a mental map. I'm hoping I didn't remember the physical maps I've see wron- Ah! There's a 'you are here' map over there!"

Lone smiled as he followed after his sister who had rushed up to the somewhat busy metal map that was in the middle of a town square of sorts. It was quite large being a few meters wide and a couple tall from his estimations.

Before long, she had rushed back to his side with a smile on her face. "I was right. We're almost at the guild now. I can remember the rest of the way so we can talk now. Whaddya wanna talk about?"

"What's your favourite food?" Lone asked as he clasped his hands behind his back.

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had a steak and onion bridie in ages, but that could just be a craving," Hazel answered seriously. "Why're you walking like an old man, by the way?"

"Fuck off," he responded defensively before chuckling a little bit. "It's comfy. You try walking like this with massive tails in your way. Even sitting down can be a challenge sometimes. All of the furniture in the Crimson Foxkin Clan is designed to accommodate a tail or three, but not nine. I swear, if I didn't have Physical Pain Resistance, my life would be miserable. It sucked a lot down in the Farwinds. I can just squish them as I need to, sure, but like this they aren't a concern."

"How does that work? Like, don't you still have 'em? Aren't they just disguised or something? What about your balance too? Cats and dogs use their tails for balance, don't they?" Hazel asked.

Lone laughed. "I feel fine. Maybe they're actually there? I dunno. They might not be. I have no idea how the item I'm using to disguise myself actually works. I mean, it's letting me hold my hands like this and my glasses are hanging off of my human ears, which I don't actually have."

Hazel stopped and jogged behind him. She gave him a quick hug and then jogged back to his side. "Yup. Not there. I couldn't feel 'em."

'That was a surprise. And... nice. I didn't expect a sneak attack hug. Well played, Haze,' he thought internally before he said, "But they're right as rain as soon as I take the brooch off. Magic is whacky."

"Yeah... I'm kinda nervous to see the person Master Mezro'nan wants to be my mind magic teacher. That's a scary branch of magic," Hazel said. "You got attacked by Princeling Keith 'cause he thought you were a blood mage, right? It's way worse for mind mages in a lot of places."

"I get it. Even if magic isn't inherently evil, it's a bit more unsettling knowing someone can mess with your mind as opposed to, say, burn you to death with a fireball," Lone shrugged. "Don't worry about it so much. Not like its visible. Just don't flaunt it once you've got it if you don't want any heat for it."

"Right... By the way, where are your Blood Clones? I don't see them," his sister asked just as the magic district's branch of The Adventurer's Guild came into view.

"One's in my blood, one's with Sophie, the other is wrapped around the skin that's covered by my clothes almost like a skin suit of armour," he said, rolling up one of his sleeves to reveal the blood-red clone underneath. "I like to wear it as a cape usually but ever since that incident with Keith, I've decided discretion is more important than the cool factor."

"You sure are cautious. You've gotta tell me about your most fun skills and maybe some you think I should learn?" Hazel said in a questioning tone as if she was seeking permission to do so, unsure if it was okay to ask something like that.

"I'd love to, but another day. For today, let's go find you a tutor to teach you something fun that I don't already own, shall we?" Lone replied with a joyful smile.

Hazel returned the gesture. "Yeah, sure, let's."