Chương 95: (B2 Chapter 46)

The system screen hovered in the air, completely unbothered by the anxiety coursing through me. Honestly, I was unsure as to why I was feeling so anxious. Perhaps I wanted some validation that all my efforts for the day weren't wasted...? I took a deep breath to calm myself, and then agreed to the system screen. However, the next screen that showed up completely deflated me. Error! Ability Upgrade Token (Epic) cannot be used by User. Requirement not met. Again?! What requirements am I still not meeting...?

I really did believe that learning to use my ability in a different manner and exploring it further would be enough for the system to decide that the requirements had been met. But, the system screen hovering in front of me like it was mocking me told a different story. I read it again and hurriedly closed it in frustration. Huh...? Wait a minute...? Did I read that wrong...? Once again, I tried to use the ability upgrade token, and this time I read the system screen more carefully.

One word in particular had caught my eye, and I had almost missed it the first time the screen had appeared in front of me. Requirement not met. Requirement! Not requirements! Wasn't it requirements before? I wracked my brain to remember if that were the case, and I was pretty sure it was. The system screen had said requirements earlier, I was certain, but now, the screen was saying requirement... singular. That means I just completed one, or more, of the requirements!

It was probably just one requirement I had met, and it was almost definitely the newer way I had thought of to use my ability. I was of the belief that it was just one because it was the only thing I had done with my ability. In fact, now that I think about it, my ability had been pretty sidelined for the past few days. It hadn't been useable in the dungeon, and ever since then I hadn't really had any fights where I had needed to use my ability. I really should keep using it… who knows how else it can be used…

Making yet another mental note, I went back to the system screen still hovering in front of me. Even though I still couldn't use the ability upgrade token, I was extremely excited to have apparently met a requirement. It was also now clear that all of us needed to become much more familiar with our abilities if we wanted to advance them further. There were two questions now burning within my mind. First, what was the other requirement that I was missing?

If becoming more familiar with the ability was one of the requirements, then perhaps the other requirement could be something much simpler, like reaching D grade, or reaching a certain level. Or it could even be like one of those kill quests in games… something like using my ability to kill a certain number of monsters, or a monster of a higher grade. Guess I'll keep using my ability as much as possible and see what satisfies the second requirement…

The second question I had was whether it was possible to upgrade my ability by myself, or would I always have to use an upgrade token? I just learned to use my ability in a different manner by myself, so if I continue experimenting, won't it naturally get stronger by itself? I had noticed that the ability did get slightly stronger as I gained more stats, so it was definitely plausible that it could naturally grow stronger. Though I wasn't sure if that would entail an actual 'upgrade' or not.

What even does it mean to upgrade the ability? Does it just get stronger or does it evolve to gain more powers? And if an upgrade token was required, would it mean I would be stuck unless I got lucky enough to find one? Also, I had an epic token, which was admittedly the highest rarity I had come across yet, but I was almost certain the system would have even higher rarities. So, should I use this token when and if I could, or should I just wait to get the absolute highest rarity possible…? I sighed.

There were just so many questions that I had completely lost track of them all at this point. I suddenly remembered that I had naively just put down ten things I needed to focus on earlier. I took out the list I had made earlier from the inventory, and was pleasantly surprised that I had, in fact, just progressed in the very first question on the list. How do abilities evolve? And what are the requirements for their evolution? What exactly are Stats and Grades? And are there any hidden stats like Luck or Charisma?

Are Grades connected solely to levels, or are there any other requirements? Can I advance to D grade before I meet the next level requirement? What are the next thresholds for Stats and Grades? How do Skills actually work? If the System does everything for a Skill, can the same effect be replicated manually? How does Mana work? And what exactly is needed to unlock a Spell? How does the Store expand? Is it tied to levels, or Grades, or will it open up after the tutorial ends for everyone else?

Or is it simply that the System hasn't completed it yet? What determines Loot? Is it tied to the nature of the monster, or based on a hidden Luck stat? How does exp work exactly? Will a lower-levelled but harder to kill monster give more exp than a higher level but extremely easy to kill one? Are there any more System Events that will come now that the tutorial is finished? Especially one that involved the other four planets that had been merged?

There were actually a few more questions that I had answered from the list. One of them was just about how the system store could expand, and that was already done by the system. Similarly, the question about whether more system events would be coming was also answered, and we had worked out how exp worked back in the dungeon, so that was another question off the list. I had also made sufficient progress towards how mana worked, and would obviously continue to do so.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Not bad Alex! I was actually surprised, but happy at the progress I had made. In fact, most of the remaining questions, like the ones about stats and grades could only be answered with time. It had been a long day of experimenting and I was happy with the results, and the headache I had been experiencing had died down now. I could barely feel it at this point.

Looking out the window, I saw night had properly fallen, and despite all I had done today, I was not feeling particularly tired. In fact, I was feeling surprisingly energetic. It's been a while since I went out on a night adventure alone… hasn't it…?

Dagger mastery and footwork mastery worked in tandem to make my strike stronger and faster, and as a final added touch, I used my ability to give my wrist a last-moment snap, resulting in a sudden boost for the dagger that sank within the neck of the monster effortlessly. It didn't even realize what had killed it. I looked back up at the night sky, mindful of the gigantic beast I had seen a few nights earlier, but mercifully there was no such monster in sight.

Going under concealed presence, I left the area and continued exploring. I had gone in a direction I hadn't gone to before, and to my surprise, about seven blocks away from our base, the buildings vanished suddenly, much like they had when we ran into those large scorpions. However, this new area wasn't like that desert, it was in fact flat meadows stretching as far as the eye could see, covered with knee-high grass. And the place was full of monsters.

Large wolves roamed in groups, fighting off against massive reptilian monsters that were covered with hard, armoured scales. Smaller creatures darted about within the grass and had their own battles ongoing. It was intimidating stepping into this biome, but I had taken a tentative step forward and found, to my surprise, that concealed presence worked beautifully even in such high grass.

Moving did cause the grass to shift, but somehow it didn't make any noise, and the shift was so natural that it may be ignored by most. In fact, it was actually being ignored by everything I had come across. I had lured a few of the smaller creatures away from the grass with my ability to fight them, not wanting to reveal myself within the grass yet, but they had all been extremely easy fights. A dagger stab to a vital area had taken care of them easily.

I really wanted to explore this place further, but the hidden dangers within the grass gave me pause. Besides, it's not like the visible dangers weren't contributing to my hesitation… One positive thing about being here was that I had been able to test out improving my night vision through my ability. I used it for a few brief seconds, as even now every single use of subtle influence gave rise to a flash of pain in my head, and the dull ache was slowly but steadily growing again. But the results were amazing!

I couldn't magically see everything as clearly as an owl, but the muted colours gained clarity and I could penetrate the shadows within the grass much more clearly now. I circled the biome, trying to see if any of the monsters were worth fighting. I was itching for a good fight, as I hadn't had one since the dungeon. However, after about an hour of circling the boundary, I was forced to give up on the grass biome for now.

All the stronger creatures looked to be deep within the grass, and I wasn't willing to expose myself so deep in the biome, especially not at night. Instead, I went back within the buildings and started looking for a good monster to fight. I ignored the foxes, spiders, and other common monsters I had fought off multiple times already. Soon, I found a possible target. For its size, it moved eerily silently. It was pitch black and walked on four, thick and long legs.

The back legs were thicker and slightly shorter when compared to the front two. It looked to be a bat-like creature walking on its front legs hunched over like a gorilla, with thick chitin covering its body, giving it natural armour. It looked to be about eight feet tall, but I wasn't sure how tall it would be if it stood upright. It had a triangular head, with a pointed nose and large, jagged fangs. Two completely black eyes on each side of its face rounded out its demonic look.

I followed it at a distance, trying to observe it before committing to a fight with it, as it honestly looked like a bad match-up for me. Critical sense just lightly highlighted its eyes, while the rest of it remained dark. It looked like the chitin covered its underside as well. Tactical insight also made its displeasure at attacking it known, and was actually warning me against getting too close to it even before attacking. Therefore, I continued following it at a distance for now.

I wanted to see how it would fight against something, but despite its naturally silent movement, somehow it ran into no monsters at all. I actually saw a few of the more common monsters shrink back at the sight of this creature and run away. Concealed presence was going to be running out soon, and I wanted to be far away from this thing when I rested to recover my mana. But before that, I wanted to take a closer look at the thing.

I stepped closer to it, and because I only wanted to observe it, tactical insight remained silent. In my single-minded focus to take a closer look, I had forgotten about the skill's earlier warning against getting close to it. A second later, I was suddenly reminded of the warning, as my foot crossed some unseen threshold and the monster's face snapped towards me, fixing me with its icy stare. A sense of wrongness hit me and with a sudden snap, something went away.

For the first time since I got the skill, concealed presence was forcefully de-activated.