The first thing Mash and his friends did for the test was sleep. Fifty-One had provided them with rather luxurious bedrolls. They were made of some fine animal fur that was very warm. All four of them had bedrolls already, and Mash’s was quite nice too. They still asked for some though, curious to test what Fifty-One was willing to do The other two had found it odd when the four of them had slept, but they needed it.

Mash couldn’t sleep for long though and woke up after only two and half hours. It was good enough for him. His body didn’t really need much sleep anymore. Instead, it was like a habit. Something he thought he needed, but his body didn’t require it anymore. He got and made exaggerated stretches as he noticed that all of the awake people were looking at him. Even Fifty-One was there, and he walked over casually as Mash went through his morning routine. It didn’t involve much, but he opened his storage space and grabbed some snacks.

“Looks like you remembered your breakfast. I had some food prepared if you would like to try something new.”

Mash’s mouth was full of some sweet fruit. It was small and red. His sister had handed him a bag of them, insisting that he would like it. He had liked them and had begun eating them whenever he was bored. He nodded to Fifty-One while his cheeks were puffed with the delicious fruit. He didn’t try to speak but watched as Fifty-One brought out some tables. He then proceeded to set up a lavish meal. Many different stews and other dishes were set out. It was only when he set out more than one empty plate, that Mash realized this spread wasn’t just for him. Although it couldn’t be for his friends either. They were all still sleeping soundly. Fifty-One waved at the two foreigners and invited them to partake as well.

It was an extremely awkward meal. Fifty-One talked a lot, although he didn’t mention anything important. Rather he talked about the food, which was admittedly very good. Mash ate his fill in the silence, and so did the two foreigners. The sound of Fifty-One speaking had quickly been delegated to the background. Some of the stews were sweet and others were spicy. Some were served with pasta while others had bread or another type of grain he hadn’t seen before. All of it was tasty, and he made sure to try a little bit of everything.

The awkward breakfast ended quickly. Then they all went their separate ways and began training. Mash didn’t immediately do anything but instead moved around until he found a good spot. Since the arena was very open, he could easily see what the other two were doing. The tall grey-skinned man was sitting and meditating by the looks of it. The other man had drawn a great sword and was swinging it about idly. It seemed a little light for a great sword, though it was hard to tell without understanding how a person’s attributes were skewed. With leveling and free stats, it was hard to discern a person’s abilities from their appearance alone. Even his domain wasn’t the best at specific understanding. It would let him get an idea of their total mana and health, which is what he used to estimate their other abilities.

That was a bit short-sighted though. There were a countless number of skills that existed, and there would certainly be some that got around his domain. It seemed like neither of them knew what they were doing and were still thinking about what Fifty-One had said. He was doing a lot of the same. Fifty-One’s little hint earlier had implied that he could level without fighting. Mash knew some classes could do that; his sister had one. Although he didn’t think that applied to every class. Mash thought that the classes based on healing and stuff like that could level by healing. He was reconsidering it now.

He started with what he knew and tried to work backward. Classes could level without killing, but not healing classes leveled by simply healing. Luke hadn’t leveled from it, although it might be hard to accomplish at his level. His sister didn’t level quickly, especially if he compared her to Arthur or himself. Leveling without killing was slow. Too slow for someone at Luke’s level. Even his sister only leveled once or twice a month at best, although she was leveling a bit faster now too. His mind shifted to his own class, and he tried to remember what the class's description had been when he first got it. Priscilla recited it perfectly.

[A traveler to other lands, you crave the exploration before all else. Nothing can deter you. As a vagabond, you head no warnings and bow to no powers. A single world can have no hold on you, so you seek power beyond it. Engage with beings outside of it. You take the strength from forbidden creatures, giving up that which made you human. You are not human, a monster, or anything else. You belong to nothing and are bound by nothing.]

[Thanks.]

Mash sent Priscilla the reply quickly and thought about what Priscilla had sent. It sounded like the nature of his class was based on exploration. Although he imagined it would take a lot of traveling to level. The other part of his class was about resisting external influences. If that was the case, would he level by rejecting enough things? That would be kind of silly. An image of him going around and just rejecting offers popped into his mind, but he ignored it. That would be stupid, and it probably wouldn’t work. He was thinking in circles and decided to break out of the loop.

The two foreigners looked bored to him, and Mash debated approaching them. Ultimately, he decided to approach the taller northerner. The other man’s resting face was a haughty sneer, and Mash didn’t want to start a fight for no reason. The grey-skinned man was meditating still, but he opened his eyes and turned toward Mash as he approached. Mash gave him a friendly smile but introduced himself normally. He felt like smiling would be a little weird in this situation.

“Hello, my name is Mash.”

Mash wasn’t sure if he would get a reply. Neither of the two people had seemed particularly friendly. Thus, he was a little surprised when the seated man did reply. He smiled a little too.

“I am Timor. How is it that we are speaking?”

The question was surprising, and it took Mash a second to realize what he meant. They were speaking different languages. The translation item was always active in Mash’s case, and he had just gotten used to it.

“Oh, I got a translation thing.”

Mash just left it at that. He didn’t want to go into the details and explain about his tattoos and items. He just gave a simple answer and received a nod in return.

“Makes sense.”

It was a short response, but Mash didn’t think that the man was trying to be unfriendly or anything. He just seemed to prefer short responses. Mash just went with it and just asked the man directly.

“Do you have any ideas about what to do?”

Timor shrugged his shoulders.

“No, but have upgraded a skill before.”

Talking with Timor was a little awkward. It felt like Mash needed to fill in the gaps himself. It wasn’t too difficult though. Timor was trying to upgrade a skill since he had done it before. That made some sense. Mash nodded and told him about what he was thinking. About how healers leveled and stuff like that. They talked a little bit more, and Mash was surprised to hear why Timor was meditating.

“I knew about skill upgrades. My home knows. General skills are easier. Meditation is my general skill.”

“Thanks. That makes sense. When I upgraded my skill, I did it with force and a lot of pain.”

Mash explained his own experience with upgrading a skill. He shared a little about what he had felt at the time. That was the end of the conversation. Both had shared their thoughts. It was an exchange of information. Two people aiding one another as they faced the same struggle. It wasn’t meant to form a long-lasting friendship, but it was enough for both of them. That was all it was, and the two parted ways after some goodbyes.

He walked back to his own little section of the arena and sat down. He thought about his skills and which of them were general as Timor had put it. Hunt was a fairly general skill though he wanted it to become more general if anything. He wondered if he could evolve the skill. Could it give him infinite energy? Was there a way to upgrade the skill to let him do that? He wanted to try, but the risk of breaking that skill was bad. If he damaged the skill then his whole combat style would need to change.

Leaving that skill as it was at the moment, he moved on to another. Thunder-wood Creation was another general skill. Creation skills were in their nature general, and he wondered how he could even upgrade them. Did creation skills even have upgrades? The material created could improve but was that really a skill improvement. He might be able to upgrade the skill though, and the risk didn’t feel all that extreme. Even without a specific skill for it, he could do it with his affinity and some help from Priscilla. Just like lightning or another element, he could make wooden creations the same way. He found that the skill just made the process easier and more efficient.

He didn’t immediately start working on the skill and thought about the other skills that he had. His golden body skill could be upgraded with enough powerful monster corpses. He still had a few wolves he could use too. Although, he had already tried that, and he knew that he would get diminishing returns if he used the same monster. Eventually, it just wouldn’t work either.

That did give him an idea though. His adaptable monster core was another skill that he knew how to upgrade. He had enough corpses too and could probably upgrade a few times if he wanted to. That would be painful though, and he would need to wake up Luke for it. Luke could heal his core if it was damaged. He could do that once Luke was awake.

Of his remaining skills, there was only one another that he thought might work. His wooden body skill was also very general, and he already thought that he was close to an upgrade for it. When he made his duplicates, he felt like he could’ve gone further. He might have been able to upgrade it before but was a little afraid of damaging the skill. That was why he hesitated before, but he reconsidered it now. If that skill broke, it would affect his fighting style significantly, but he wouldn’t actually become that much weaker. His transformations were stronger than his wooden creations. Only his imitation skill was really effective now. His normal wooden creations were really only good for eating and trapping things.

He didn’t immediately make the choice. He talked it over with Priscilla and continued to think about it for a long while afterward. Focused on that singular though, he barely even noticed when the others woke up. Red woke up first and walked over slowly. They talked a little, and Mash shared what he had learned. Luke and Jill woke up around the same time, and Mash repeated his findings again. They talked about their skills silently. Priscilla acted as a medium for them to transfer silent messages between each other. They didn’t want to reveal anything about their skills to the others.