The first snow came before Azrael managed to find a solution to the issue, and the dragon had flown overhead once more.

It was a late autumn morning when the snow finally came. Frosty mornings were no longer uncommon and the water barrel outside sometimes had a layer of ice on top. A few cold and heavy rain showers had brought grey clouds for days, but no matter how cold it got it had never snowed. Hail was probably the closest they’d gotten.

But this morning there had been snow. Out to fetch water Alena had been the first to notice it, dragging him out from the warmth of the building.

Soft white snowflakes were drifting down from the grey clouds above. The air was chilly and his breath left white vapor in the air. Breathing out he felt a lot like a dragon, except with white clouds of vapor, instead of fire. He smiled as Alena danced around in excitement.

She pointed to the snow and signed “What’s it called?”

He showed he correct sign. “Snow”

“Snow. Snow. SNOW!” Her fingers flashed in excitement as she tried out the new word. Honestly, it was a little adorable.

Azrael let her bounce around. With a quick [Fire Bullet] he melted the ice layer on the water barrel and filled the kettle, before heading back into the warmth of the house. On really cold mornings the water froze in the pipes from the lake, meaning that they had to manually fetch water from outside. The water would thaw before breakfast was over, so it wasn’t a massive inconvenience.

Setting the kettle to boil Azrael made breakfast, letting Alena frolic a bit more. He frowned when he noticed that they were running low on oats. He’d have to drop by the village today.

Alena finally came in, smelling food. Her hair and eyelashes were frosted with a fine coating of rapidly melting snowflakes.

The snow kept on falling over breakfast and soon the forest floor was covered in a thin blanket of white snow. It seemed today was going to be another day to rug up inside. Snow was nice and all, but he wasn’t overly fond of the cold.

Letting Alena stack the plates, he took out the status cube he was building. Later Alena would go out to check her traps. He would wait for her to return, before going to the village. In the meantime, he really wanted to solve the problem of the corrupted text. He wasn’t doing it altruistically though. He wanted to finish it in order to check the villagers’ skills and see if he could learn any. And to satisfy his curiosity. Mainly his curiosity.

A good while later, Azrael threw his stylus at the wall in boredom. It snapped like a piece of chalk, falling to the ground in two. WHY WAS IT SO HARD???.

He had a title which literally told him that he was the {Master of Status}. Why then, was it failing? If he had a title like ‘Lord of Thunder’, or ‘Lightning’s Master’, then shouldn’t he expect to be able to completely command it? Why was it that in manga and manhua that if the protagonist gained some divine heavenly nine cycles lightning Dao root they gained absolute control and imperviousness to lightning? Or when they got a skill passed on to them they could use it right away? Why couldn’t that work for him?

He looked over his status cube. Still built up of multiple stone plates, it had mana stones connecting each layer, storing and transmitting mana between the separate rune structures. It even had an inbuilt mana accumulator to pick up most of the activation cost! Why then? The rune code should be perfect!

He’d tested each part multiple times in Sera’s realm and it had worked. Why now? It was an exact copy of the code. All it had to do was transmit information from the soul to the box through physical contact. One plate was to receive it, one plate was to decode it. One plate was to change it to something recognisable and another to assemble the information. The final three were for formatting, display and mana regulation. So why?

He looked at the box. Why did he need it? He knew that it worked in Sera’s realm, which meant that it should work in the game. Despite the fact that it didn’t, he’d effectively satisfied his curiosity. It worked.

He didn’t even need it really. He had the special ability from his title {Master of Status}. It allowed him to bestow the unique skill [Status] onto others.

He turned to Alena, who was adjusting the heat runes.

“Come here for a moment” he called to her. She came over ready to place her hand on the status cube again, but he stopped her by grabbing her hand instead.

Focusing on {Master of Status} he willed the active affect onto her. Through the soul link he felt her nervousness, which slowly began to change into apprehension. He felt the skill activate, latching on to her. Her soul trembled and he felt something resonate across their link. He tried following the link as far as he could and he swore that he could almost feel the skill growing, taking root in her soul. It was a bizarre occurrence, the soul mist simultaneously falling down, while at the same time rising up and crystalising into a familiar crystal lattice.

Briefly he noticed that she seemed to lack a similar core to her soul, like he had, but didn’t focus on that, as several notifications popped up at the same time.

Congratulations!

You have successfully conferred the skill [Status] onto the individual ‘Alena’

Congratulations!

For gaining a new insight into another’s soul you have gained three levels in [Soul Sense].

Congratulations!

Due to having a soul-connection with the individual ‘Alena’ you are able to see their status.

Status

Name: Alena

Class: Villager (Lv.2)

HP: 60/60

MP: 50/50

STR: 6

END: 6

DEX: 4

AGI: 5

INT: 5

WIS: 4

Titles:

{Azrael’s Oathbound}

Unique Skills:

[Status]

Skills:

Dagger Arts (Lv.6), Meditation (Lv.2), Trap Making (Lv.8), Stealth (Lv. 6), Housework (Lv.5).

Well, he could see her [Status] now. Honestly, after everything that had led to this point it was very… anticlimactic.

Alena herself was staring into space before her, turning her head slightly, no doubt gawking at the blue screen only visible to her. Her title {Azrael’s Oathbound} was… worrying? He felt it should be worrying, but he wasn’t sure why.

Maybe the fact that the [Status] screen thought it important enough to include. Up until now he was still working with the idea that, after Alena got her revenge, he would be able to get rid of her. The fact that it the title appeared in the blue box that showed everything that made ‘her’, was… sobering.

As to her skills, he’d expected [Trap Making], but not [Housework], although it did make sense.

It was [Soul Sense] that baffled him. He hadn’t really learnt anything… had he? The only thing was… Azrael facepalmed. The connection. The problem with the status cube was the connection.

One strand up to the skill crystal, one strand down to the core. The soul mist was in between, flowing through both. His creation lacked a connection big enough to transfer the information from the soul to the box.

He was ‘limiting the flow between them’. He’d assumed that it was a problem with the information delivered, and in a way it was. In his soul realm however, he had worked straight with the runes, forgoing the actual physical box. Mana flowed through his box like soul mist did through his soul.

Grabbing a spare stone plate, he began reshaping it over the top of the cube and embedding mana stones where the person’s palm would rest. Stone was a terrible conductor of mana. By limiting the flow of power he’d been limiting the effective output of the whole design, a bit like a torch without enough battery. It had everything it needed to shine brightly, but was lacking that little bit of power.

Calling Alena over to test it he was ecstatic when her status displayed properly.

He was interrupted mid celebration when there was a knock from outside the door.