"Soul Reinforcement and Stamina Redirection, huh?" Lone mumbled to himself as he looked at the two books held in his hands.

Al'ka had left almost immediately after he had given Lone these two manuals and confirmed with the bookkeepers that his chances had been consumed. Apparently, Al'ka couldn't afford to be away from his work for any longer than the time he had already spent with Lone.

Sophie, who was seated next to Lone, said, "So you have a whole six months to learn these skills before you have to return them... That's a lot of time."

Lone laughed lightly. "You think so?"

He looked at Sophie as her face filled with confusion, so he decided to explain the meaning behind his chuckle. "Six months is a short amount of time to learn any skill, I've heard, for normal people at least."

"But even for me, Lone, it only takes two to three months..." Sophie replied as she gently stroked Kyuubi's furry tail. The little girl squirmed in her sleep slightly before she wrapped her tail around Sophie's arm and resumed her nap.

Lone grinned happily at this scene. "Even among people who aren't lucky enough to be blessed with my Growth Accelerator skill, taking two to three months is insanely fast. Both you and Breena are incredible geniuses."

Sophie blushed. "I forgot..."

It was easy to subconsciously ignore common sense when you lived with the abnormal for too long, or so it would appear.

Lone rubbed Sophie's head. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think I'm pretty compatible with both of these skills, so it shouldn't take me any longer than a few hours to grasp the basics of them."

"Mmm," Sophie grinned from ear to ear as she enjoyed Lone's affectionate headpat.

Opening the first book, titled, 'Stamina Redirection: An Art Of Neither The Physique Nor The Spirit', Lone began reading. Several hours passed as Lone completely immersed himself in the knowledge contained within, he even went so far as to reread it three times.

At this point, it was almost dusk, however, Lone wore a satisfied smile. "So it's different from regular or magical skills and is more like Soph's World Skill: Sword Intent?"

As Lone had mumbled, this particular power took its energy from the world, not from the system, and thus wasn't bound to the rules of it. At most, it could only be categorised and viewed via the system, but in no way, shape, or form, could the skill be interacted with beyond that like most other skills were.

As an example of this, the system was always examining the people of Altros and their actions to decide if it needed to create new skills or give out existing ones. It also monitored every skill in existence and forced them to start at beginner level 1 where the host would have to work hard and level them up to improve them.

World skills worked differently. It was impossible to level them up simply by using them. The only way to improve your usage of a world skill was to gain a deeper understanding of the core of the skill. Another factor that differentiated world skills from the system ones, was that they didn't always start at level one.

This was clearly proven by Sophie since her Sword Intent was already classified as beginner level 7 the moment the world recognised it.

'Thanks for your book, Clicker. You surprisingly had some useful information in it,' Lone thanked as he recalled the ancient tome that he had stolen from Clicker that detailed all of this.

To the rest of the continent, World Skills were known differently. Some called them innate talents, others claimed that they were birthrights, a few even went so far as to say that they were boons granted to harbingers of doom sent by The All-lord, the leader of the monsters living in the northern monster lands.

The Elves and Fairies of the four world trees had less radical thoughts. They categorised the world skills on the same level as powerful and strange abilities like those of Soul Oracles, Space Mages, Creation Mages, Endless Explorers, Witches, and so on and so forth.

Over the millions of years that the Elves and Fairies have protected the world trees, they have collected and stored tens of thousands of such skills and simply call them techniques.

Lone sighed briefly. "Oh well, I'm pretty sure I have a decent affinity with this skill, so hopefully I can learn it even if I still haven't learnt the Spear Intent skill..."

With that in mind, Lone closed his eyes and tried his best to clear his mind. He envisioned his days as a gamer, performing menial tasks over and over and over and over again to raise his item level by a single digit.

Such tasks made Lone's mind go numb back on Earth. He was never the biggest fan of grinding in MMOs, however, it was a necessary evil.

After doing that for a few minutes, Lone felt his whole body go numb. As if on instinct, he raised his palm and placed it on his chest like the skill's manual had instructed him to do.

A few moments passed before Lone felt a strange energy flood his entire body. It filled him completed and only avoided his multicoloured and powerful soul which was the home of three primal essences.

This power... this energy, it felt sticky to Lone. With a brief thought, he asked it to focus on his leg. In under a millisecond, ninety-five-percent of the force swept over his left leg and stayed there as if it was the most natural place for it to be.

Lone, while keeping his mind clear, began aimlessly kicking his leg into the air at a fairly fast pace. The sound of this woke up the sleeping Sophie who was leaning against him, however, she could feel a familiar sensation coming from Lone. It was Worldforce, a power she herself owned and knew how hard it was to obtain, so she tried to stay still and keep quiet.

After Lone had moved his leg around for maybe thirty minutes or so, Lone could feel that this strange and unfamiliar energy had been reduced by ten-percent, however, he felt no strain nor exhaustion from his leg.

With that test over, still with his palm on his chest, Lone used one of his tails to cut off his other arm and he willed the power in his leg to move to the now bleeding wound.

Without adding any mana to his basic Regeneration Skill, and avoiding using his Creation Magic, Lone felt as his arm was fully regrown in less than five minutes.

Congratulations! The host's unique skill [Basic Regeneration] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 2. The host has been granted the skill: Stamina Redirection. World Skill: Stamina Redirection

A skill that was granted to the host by the planet: Altros.

This skill allows the host to use their Worldforce and insert in into others or keep it within themselves and use it to forcefully stimulate a person's stamina and focus it on specific areas or scatter it throughout the body.

Cost: Dependant on the desired redirection of stamina. Mastery: Expert Level 4 The host has gained a new stat: Worldforce

"I actually succeeded after one try?" Lone said in shock.

Sophie, who had been patiently watching him, had a very proud and happy look on her face. "It's a skill really similar to your Basic Regeneration, right? Both of them forcefully amplify your healing, though Basic Regeneration is better for that than this skill is..."

"You're right," Lone replied. "Still, I'm a bit surprised. Maybe now that I have Worldforce, I might finally be able to learn Spear Intent."

"No," Sophie said with a pout as she stroked Kyuubi's tail.

A bit stunned, Lone asked, "Why not?"

With reddened cheeks, Sophie responded, "Because then it'd be harder for me to beat you in our duels."

A silence consumed Lone as his face went blank before he began laughing loudly. Sophie's face turned even redder while Kyuubi woke up and looked around a bit. She saw her father laughing, so she decided to join in and giggle along with him.

"If you're scared, then you just have to improve and get stronger than me, Soph," Lone teased.

"Muuu...." Sophie's pout continued, however, she was genuinely happy that Lone was growing stronger. She was eagerly awaiting the day that he could live without worrying about beings like Clicker any longer.

"Ah, Lone, why don't you see how much Worldforce you have? I bet I have more!" Feeling sure of herself, since she had obtained this very stat over a year ago in Clicker's dungeon, Sophie was confident that the planet couldn't have given more to Lone than to her!... hopefully.

"You're surprisingly competitive today," Lone noted before he rubbed Sophie's head and checked his status at the same time that she did.

Status Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 26 Level: 499 Species: Foxkin Rank: B Race: Golden Sky Fox of The Endless Void HP: 10,460/10,460 [+ 900] SP: 21,976/34,760 [+ 3,060] MP: 132,000/132,000 [+ 5,000] [New!] WF: 51/1,000 Basic Stats Strength: 1,224 [+ 100] Vigour: 1,046 [+ 90] Dexterity: 2,414 [+ 123] Agility: 3,175 [+ 170] Vitality: 3,476 [+ 306] Luck: 377 [+ 4] Secret Stats Charm: 161 [+ 2] Charisma: 250 [+ 10] Magic Power: 13,200 [+ 500] Control: 394 [+ 4] Rage: 10

"I surprisingly got more stats from those soldiers than I expected," Lone commented.

Sophie was too busy sighing in relief to hear Lone's musings. "Phew, I have more than him... though only barely..."

Lone chuckled lightly and wrapped his arm around Sophie. "Is it such a bad thing for me to be better than you in a few things? No matter how hard I try, I'll never have your insanely high luck stat, now will I?"

"That's true... but... I want to be more helpful to you, and it's hard if you're great at everything," Sophie complained cutely.

"I'm terrible at enchanting. You could always learn how to do that from Eolande, couldn't you?" Lone suggested.

"M-Maybe." The thought had crossed Sophie's mind before, however, she and Eolande didn't get along very well, so she would feel awkward asking her for help.

"A-Anyway, Lone. Aren't you going to practice that new soul skill?" Sophie asked to change the subject.

"Not now. I can't heal souls beyond binding them, so I don't wanna risk using it on myself in case anything goes wrong. I'll try it out later on animals. I already have the skill memorised, so there's no big rush, really," Lone explained.

"Okay," Sophie replied as she snuggled into Lone.

Meanwhile, in a dark and near-endless cave, powers stirred.

In a large and fully pitch black chamber, four figures stood nervously in front of their ruler.

The massive towering figure of darkness spoke to them.

"Thee shall all leaveth at dawn. Weaken the Elven f'rces bef're mine own grand arrival. Maketh haste, f'r the wench in the tree grows m're pow'rful as the days passeth," Ythmagobla ordered as his body stirred in the darkness.

"Yes!" All four of them, Itchy and Van included, got down on one knee and exclaimed with pride.

"I shalt reward each of thee with thy owneth divinity upon the successful completion of this mission." The four grew excited at his words.

Itchy had already been promised help with reaching the Divine-rank, but to Van and the other two, this was news, great and joyous news.

The third person who was kneeling, a large slime-like monster known as a Gelatinous Emperor, was shaking and blubbering to no end and his lowered body was struggling to maintain a solid form as it was pulsing with energy and excitement.

The fourth being, an incredibly erotic woman who was wearing next to no clothing and had black wings, a black tail and two goat-like horns on her head, a Destroyer Succubus, grinned seductively at the thought of breaking her Cosmos-ranked shackles and ascending to a power closer to that of her master.

"Begone, and showeth me thy pow'rs, mine own children," Ythmagobla gave the final order, and instantly, his four generals and most prized children all left the chamber in a flash.

War was coming to the eastern world tree, and there was only one question: Who would survive? The Elves, or Ythmagobla's forces?