‘Should I teleport him back?’ Sophie thought in a bit of a panic.

Still, she didn’t start crying or even so much as make a sound. The last thing she wanted to do was alert any more groups of goblins.

‘I don't think I have enough mana points to get us both all the way back home... There's the weapons too...’ She bit her lip almost hard enough to puncture it.

She sat on the grass next to Lone's burnt and broken body. He was groaning a lot which meant he was at least conscious this time.

She wondered if that was even a good thing or not. ‘The sheer amount of pain he must be in…’

Sophie snuck a glance at him and was damn-near jubilant to see that he was visibly healing. Slowly, his burnt-to-a-crisp black skin was flaking off to reveal red-raw but tender flesh.

His lost eye was recovering too. The filthy goblin magic that covered him was being pushed away by his ever brilliant, ever beautiful golden mana.

The noises of his regeneration though sent a chill up her spine. Still, she could endure that. She had endured far worse experiences in the past, after all.

Maybe a minute or so ticked by as she struggled to figure out what to do. Thankfully for Sophie, she didn't have to struggle for much longer.

Immense pain filled every fibre of his being. Just breathing was a challenge but still, Lone slowly opened his eyes and tried to grin at Sophie.

She was likely scared out of her mind so he felt he needed to comfort her somehow.

"Physical Pain Resistance is really something, huh? Even if it doesn't actually get rid of the pain itself, it sure as fuck makes it somewhat bearable," Lone said. “Oh god. I can speak but I sound like a chronic smoker. Better focus my MP on getting this throat healed up first, huh?”

"Lone!" Sophie exclaimed in a quiet but very worried tone. “Y-You shouldn’t strain yourself!”

Raising a black and crisp finger to his charred lips, Lone whispered.

"Shh. Let's not make too much more noise, okay? I need a few more minutes to heal all of... this," he said as he gestured to his body.

He then sighed faintly. "I'm putting my mana into the skill, but Basic Regen can only do so much in so little time. Can you gather all of the goblins' weapons for me?"

Sophie covered her mouth with her tiny hands and nodded her head quickly.

"Mmm! I can do that!" she answered in a hushed tone.

Lone smiled. "Great. I'm counting on you. Please put them in front of me."

Sophie got on her feet and carefully collected the various broken and rusted weapons before putting them where Lone had asked.

The last one she got was the mage's staff since that goblin's body was the furthest away. By the time she had placed the wooden stick in front of him, Lone’s entire body had healed.

He was thankful almost all of the damage dealt was surface level. The wounds from the simpler goblins still remained but he could let them heal passively.

What was a stab wound or two to him now? He chuckled at that thought.

Lone stored everything inside of his Dimensional Storage and stumbled up onto his feet. He hobbled over to the boar's body and took that as well.

Once he was finished, he stretched his body a bit. "Okay, I think I'm good to walk back home now. My MP and my SP are both really low while my HP’s at about two-thirds. Let's be super sneaky so we don’t get jumped on our way back, okay? I don’t think I’m up for another brawl."

Sophie immediately bobbed her head up and down in agreement.

"Yeah. I can be super sneaky," she whispered.

Lone couldn't help but smirk at the girl's antics. He did have to wonder how a blind girl could be so expressive with her dull eyes though.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had that thought and likely wouldn’t be the last. 'I wonder what colour they should be? Or maybe she was blind from birth... What are you thinking, you idiot? Let's get home first and think about this stuff later.'

The two, unfortunately, ran into another group of goblins on their way back. A collection of nine of the monsters in total who appeared to be investigating the loud sounds from earlier.

That or perhaps the smell of blood. Either way, Sophie managed to teleport both of them away before they were spotted. Besides that little scare, they successfully returned to their hidden fortress.

"I'm gonna lie down for a bit. I'm really tired and I wanna look at these system notifications that keep begging for me to look at them. What do you wanna do, Soph?" Lone asked as he was in the middle of taking his boots off.

Sophie tugged at her own footwear and she scrunched her face up adorably as she struggled to pull her shoes off.

Once her feet were eventually freed once more, she wriggled her toes, making her socks move about. "I dunno. If you're gonna lie down, can I lay down with you?"

Lone thought for a second. An image of Sophie's adult self cuddling up to him in their bed flashed across his mind.

He shook his head to get rid of such an inappropriate thought. "Sure. Just be gentle with my tails, okay? I don't think I can handle your... roughness until I've rested for at least a few hours."

Sophie blushed then pouted a bit. "I'm always gentle..."

Lone chuckled. "Sure you are," he said as he left the entrance hallway and made his way to the bedroom.

Once there, he changed out of his burnt and destroyed clothes and got into a set of loose and comfortable pyjamas. He couldn’t be bothered taking a bath nor did he feel he really needed to.

All of his skin was brand-spanking new, after all. ‘Getting burnt to a crisp is certainly one way to get a deep cleanse.’

Sophie yawned as she entered the bedroom and, like him, quickly changed into her pyjamas.

The two clambered into the king-sized bed with somewhat lazy and tired movements. Lone put his hands behind his head and got comfy while Sophie snuggled up to his tails and closed her eyes.

He reasoned that she was probably just as exhausted as he was. Him physically, her more so mentally, or at least that's what he assumed.

Taking one of his hands and using it to play around with her hair mindlessly, Lone finally spared a moment to check out the many notifications that were waiting for his attention.

Sophie didn’t mind his actions since she commandeered his tails more often than not.

Congratulations! The host's unique skill [Basic Regeneration] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 1. Congratulations! The host's unique skill [Basic Regeneration] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 2.

As expected, his Basic Regen had stepped into a new rank; Intermediate.

Before inspecting the other system messages, Lone decided to see if going up in rank from Beginner to Intermediate had any substantial effects on the skill's abilities to heal him.

He crossed his free fingers and hoped so.

Unique Skill: Basic Regeneration

A skill unique to the host, Lone Immortus.

Grants the host the ability to passively heal injuries at a moderate [up from slow] rate. The healing rate can be increased in exchange for mana.

Cost: 40 MP [Down by 10 MP] (per second per 1% increase in healing rate) Mastery: Intermediate Level 2

'Ah, so the cost of boosting it went down and it's a bit faster passively. That's definitely good,’ Lone thought with a grin.

‘So ranking skills up is a must-do thing then, huh? Then again, I wonder if all skills get a direct buff from ranking up? I guess I should check my Physical Pain Resistance to compare, shouldn't I?’ he chuckled mentally at himself.

‘I can’t believe I never bothered to see if it had changed once it hit intermediate rank… I just assumed it got more effective, which it certainly did,' Lone thought to himself before he did just that.

First, of course, he dismissed the notifications of that particular skill's level ups. It had gone up twice from the previous battle.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Physical Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 7. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Physical Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 8.

Lone assumed once from the stabbings he had endured and once from the fireball. Heck, perhaps the fireball had accounted for both levels.

Passive Skill: Physical Pain Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist physical pains while still being aware of their existence.

All physical pain shall be weakened by 15% [+10%].

Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 8

'Oh, sweet! Yeah, I could definitely feel a change. I was kinda hoping I'd get a new effect though, assuming that's possible for resistances,” he thought a bit wistfully.

He twirled his finger in Sophie’s hair a bit thoughtfully as he pondered over the matter more. ‘It'd sure be nice to have a toggleable skill that could directly block all pain. I wouldn't have to worry about getting too risky without the fear of pain since I have Basic Regen anyway...’

Moving on, the next string of system messages was about his weapon masteries.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Spear Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Swordspear Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.

The next notification surprised him a bit.

The host has developed the passive skill: Sword Mastery. Passive skill: Sword Mastery

A skill that allows the host to wield swords with a basic level of competence.

All swords used by the host will cut their targets 5% more easily.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 1

The only thing he could think of as to why he had earned this skill was that one of the goblins today must have had the Sword Mastery skill.

Surprising considering that none of them had any skills so far, or at least they didn't use any of them on Lone before he killed them if they possessed any.

It was still under debate whether skills were rare or not in this world, so Lone couldn't be sure.

Finally, he checked the last few messages which pertained to the magic that Lone had wanted badly enough to risk almost dying to obtain it.

The host has developed the passive skill: Fire Magic Resistance. Passive Skill: Fire Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Fire Magic.

Fire Magic used on the host will be weakened by 5%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner level 1

‘It’s weird that some skills have that ‘a skill that’ bullshit, but others don’t. I wonder why? Still, this directly resists the thing, huh? Not just the pain made by the thing. That’s pretty fuckin’ awesome,’ he thought quite happily.

The host has developed the active fire magic skill: Crude Fireball. Active Fire Magic Skill: Crude Fireball

An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Fireball] Fire Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 100 lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is substantially increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 5,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 1 Congratulations! The host has developed an affinity for Fire Magic.

Lone was left speechless. 'This 'magic affinity' stuff is kinda useless to me considering I have Growth Accelerator, but I guess it could be useful to literally anyone else. I suppose for me it'd be like adding a few dribbles of oil to an already roaring flame. It won't do much, but it will do something... maybe. This Crude Fireball though... It's total shit.'

Lone really wasn't a fan of this skill now. From what he could piece together, one of the elves probably knew the proper Fireball skill.

The mage that Sophie had killed most likely saw it and tried to recreate it. That made the most sense to Lone.

This was definitely genius, mind you. Lone was unaware of how hard it truly was to gain a skill from just seeing someone else do it.

He did know that he was special in that particular regard, otherwise, why would the mysterious god give him a skill that specifically allowed him to learn skills by simply having them be used on him a single time? This goblin must have been really talented.

"Shame it was born a goblin. I wonder if it would have become a really talented magic-user if it was born as a more intelligent species?" Lone mumbled to himself.

Even if he despised the goblins and their seemingly lust-driven nature, Lone couldn't help but think like a teacher and wonder what could have been were that particular goblin to have a fair and proper chance to learn and allow its talents to blossom.

Shaking his head lightly, Lone chuckled softly. "Such a stupid idea."

He smiled wryly before checking out his status sheet. The magic affinity sheet didn't interest him at all so he didn’t bother opening it this time either just like when he had earned it.

Status

Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 24 Level: 28 [+2] Species: Foxkin Rank: H Race: Golden Foxkin HP: 705/1,010 [+150] SP: 202/3,610 [+510] MP: 331/6,520 [+720] Basic Stats Strength: 82 [+8] Vigour: 361 [+51] Dexterity: 183 [+23] Agility: 110 [+14] Vitality: 101 [+15] Luck: 56 [+1] Bonus Stats Charm: 72 Charisma: 40 Magic Power: 652 [+72]

'Two levels this time instead of nine... Well, it's progress all the same. I really wish I knew what luck actually did. Does it even do anything? Another thing to research once we get to some kind of mainland.' Lone's mind was filled with worries.

The sound of light snoring filled his ears. Lone looked down at the little girl who was peacefully snuggled up to him while she used his many tails as both hugging-partners and blankets.

He couldn't help but smile at this peculiar sight before disentangling his fingers from her golden-blonde locks.

'I wonder how someone can be so... unfettered by the things going on around them? She gets scared and nervous easily, but when we're in here... she's like a different person,” he thought absentmindedly.

‘I wonder if it's nice being so carefree? It's like she's only concerned about getting my attention and approval at times... She really does remind me a lot of Hazel when she was a kid...' Lone's head was full of various thoughts.

Although, eventually his mind returned to the image of a nearly naked adult Sophie. He shook his head and closed his eyes, deciding to sleep away those thoughts.